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Expert Opinions I Agree with (That Most People Don’t)

43 points by sieste 3y ago

gjsman-1000 3y ago
> But pretty much every economic indicator is positive. Even the indicators that pessimistic pundits like to complain about are largely from areas where wages have been stagnant, or inequality has been rising rather than genuine decline. I am going to take issue with this one; because as standards rise, the more unachievable they can become. Example: 100 years ago, it wasn’t nearly as hard to buy a house. Sure, they might have had leaky roofs or lacked electricity or lacked indoor plumbing, but that was pretty normal. Your wife wasn’t going to lose her mind if you told her the outhouse was the only option. Now here we are. Sure, our homes are way better - and more unaffordable for everyone. Just saying it’s better than it was - so stop being so pessimistic ignores how comparatively out of reach life feels. It would be like if the only computer you could buy in 2027 was $8000, and had the equivalent of a RTX 7090 in it. “Stop whining - it’s so much better than they used to be” is not my complaint.
- bmmayer1 3y ago
  > because as standards rise, the more unachievable they can become Why should "standards" be relevant in the measurement of long-term economic indicators? Doesn't the very stack that standards have risen prove the core point that life has gotten better?
  - gjsman-1000 3y ago
    It means life has gotten better for those that can keep up and afford it. It also means life sucks more, and is far more hopeless and depressing, for people who can’t. Extreme example: LA.
  - caeril 3y ago
    Rising standards create floors and ceilings. To use the GP's example: if the median standard home has electricity, a minimum insulation R-value, a minimum grade of roof, minimum square footage, bathroom plumbing, land setbacks, etc, governments tend to align their habitability inspection requirements with those standards. Let's say hypothetically that County X establishes the 2023 habitability requirements, and these requirements by market necessity cost a minimum of $120k for the dwelling and $120k for the land. Let's say you're a single guy on minimum wage who is absolutely fine not having electricity, is ok with dealing with the occasional roof leak, and has no problem using a composting toilet. You want to buy a home, and you can absolutely afford it, but County X is preventing you from doing so because the standards have been set by people making more than minimum wage.
- jlund-molfese 3y ago
  Isn’t it land that’s gotten (unaffordably) more expensive, not houses themselves? There are still places you can buy $50K or $100K homes in the US, which has a lot of land. But you’d pay 10X more in a desirable metro area.
napsec 3y ago
I'm not convinced most people disagree with these.
- wongarsu 3y ago
  Some of those are definitely in the realm of "if you agree, it's often wiser not to say so". People weren't amused at all when James Watson said that intelligence is heritable, and that like basically all other heritable attributes there is a difference between the average of different "races". [1] 1: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46856779 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46856779
  - y-curious 3y ago
    Yep, that was the only "controversial" opinion in this piece. Oh, intelligence is heritable due to genetics? Certain genetic groups have more incidence of Sickle Cell Anemia? Let's put those together...
    - wongarsu 3y ago
      The problem is that once you say that something has a strong genetic component, two different genetic groups having the exact same distribution of that attribute would be really surprising. But while we are fine with different genetic groups having different incidences for hair color, nose shapes or skin pigmentation, and are slowly coming to grips with different genetic groups having different incidences of various illnesses, and sometimes different reactions to them, the idea that different genetic groups could have statistically significant intelligence differences feels wrong.
      - dennis_jeeves1 3y ago
        >But while we are fine with different genetic groups having different incidences for hair color, nose shapes or skin pigmentation, For most people differences among different groups stop at the brain ;)
      - 3y ago
JimtheCoder 3y ago
With regards to #2... Maybe I am not smart enough for this, but can someone define "General Intelligence" for me? "Practically speaking, the best way to become smarter is to learn a lot of stuff and cultivate a lot of skills. Since knowledge and skills are more specific than general intelligence, that may be less than we desire, but it still matters a lot." Would "learning a lot of stuff and cultivating a lot of skills" not boost your general intelligence?
- pgwhalen 3y ago
  > Maybe I am not smart enough for this, but can someone define "General Intelligence" for me? I think about this a lot and frankly don't have a good answer, but my current definition is something like "the speed and the depth at which someone can synthesize and comprehend new ideas." It's by no means perfect, but when I observe people around me that just "seem smart" to me, the above statement is generally true.
yellow_lead 3y ago
> Children don’t learn languages faster than adults, but they do reach higher levels of mastery. > adults simply plateau at a non-native level of ability, given continued practice. If adults plateau and kids don't, kids do learn languages faster.
- jjnoakes 3y ago
  If by "learn" you mean "native mastery" then I suppose you are saying only kids reach that level, so they are "faster" simply because they are the only ones to finish. The article considers "learn" to mean roughly "fluency", short of native mastery, and adults tend to reach fluency faster, then plateau. So depending on nuance, you and the article are both right in some sense.
gvd 3y ago
I really hate this "markets are efficient" bullshit. The markets are too slow because they don't incorporate the true cost of stuff. The environment is going to shit and by the time the markets have incorporated that cost, it is too late.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  I think he is referring to publicly traded markets, like stock exchanges. The less liquidity, the more inefficiency there is...the environment being an extreme example...
- apsec112 3y ago
  Markets are efficient in the sense that you can't personally make money by trading stocks, not in the sense that the economy is optimal for society as a whole. Pollution is the classic example of a negative externality that harms society by offloading part of the cost of individual behavior to others. But you can't personally make money by exploiting the societal inefficiency of pollution. (In game theory terms, not every Nash equilibrium is a Pareto optimum.)
- catlover76 3y ago
  > The environment is going to shit and by the time the markets have incorporated that cost, it is too late. I'm not sure that measuring externalities like that are what markets are for. In the context of this post, for example, the author seems to be casting a pretty narrow net here, and talking about whether market prices are accurate measures of what other people are willing to pay for a thing. To speak of markets as serving society poorly by not incorporating environmental impacts is to speak of other than what he is talking about when he says "markets are rational".
- mikhailfranco 3y ago
  There would seem to be a gap in the market for indices of climate-linked prices, then people could discover trends, and perhaps trade on their perceptions of mis-pricing. See my detailed comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172299 Can I sell you my apartment in Miami? Would you park your Ferrari in the basement?
woodruffw 3y ago
I think most people agree with most of these; what they don’t agree with is the various ways in which they’re used to advance or justify repugnant normative claims (shaming people for being overweight, blindly asserting the market’s efficiency in all cases, insinuating that social racial assignments are a good predictor of intelligence, &c.)
- rileymat2 3y ago
  The formulation of them is also interesting, for example CICO is true, but the composition of food matters so much because the CI affects the CO they are not completely independent, there is much more to the story.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  Or that since most people are at least somewhat better off overall, that justifies the gap between the richest and the poorest in the world. "You were starving 30 years ago, now you're merely hungry and miserable while you can watch me eat fois gras" is not an argument that will appeal to anyone who isn't also enjoying the god life and trying to justify that.
  - andriesm 3y ago
    I'm always amused by how much people value wealth differences above absolute measures of poverty. I am more a fan of, let's increase wealth inequality even more if it means we can raise the bottom. In America very few people die of starvation, but Americans complain bitterly about the fact that others have it so much better than the people at the bottom. I have been in many truly poor places where people would give anything to trade their miserable starvation at the door lives for that inequality that poor Americans have to endure.
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      This is how we're wired as a species, and frankly more than just a species. We don't just look at what we have and what we want, we look at what other people have and ask ourselves why they got it and we didn't. At a basic level it's an instinct that exists in lower primates, and in us as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg The difference with us is that we can learn and understand the reasons why one person gets a "grape" and the other a "cucumber"... and those answers are often not just unsatisfying, but infuriating.
dmn322 3y ago
For #2, the idea that the evidence is overwhelming is just made up. The idea that the “experts” agree with him is laughable. That’s not what the majority of cognitive scientists believe at this point except in a few niches that are largely ignored by actual members of the field. So he just cherry-picked his “experts”. This is the problem with “rationalists”.. . They don’t actually use their brains, they defer to “authority”, arguing that anyone that doesn’t listen to authorities is arrogant, but then they pick who they deem to be authorities to match their pre-existing opinions.
- gochi 3y ago
  It's very circular, I found it ironic and even his advice contradicts his belief about #2.
- kypro 3y ago
  The evidence is overwhelming that intelligence is at least partly heritable. It's uncontroversial among experts to say that it's likely around 50% heritable. It's perhaps a little overstated to say it's "largely" heritable and that the evidence for this is overwhelming. Being charitable here perhaps the author was just saying that the evidence is overwhelming that intelligence is heritable (to some degree), and that it's their opinion that it's "largely" heritable (assuming they mean 50%+). If by "largely" they just meant somewhere in the region of 50%, then I think this is a fairly accurate statement. The author shares my view on this. If I had to guess intelligence is likely to be somewhere around to 60-80% heritable in the West. However, in countries where malnutrition, disease and lack of basic education are factors these are likely more important than genetics. > This is the problem with “rationalists”.. . They don’t actually use their brains, they defer to “authority”, arguing that anyone that doesn’t listen to authorities is arrogant, but then they pick who they deem to be authorities to match their pre-existing opinions. Ad hominem. Also your criticising rationalists for both blindly overweighting the opinions of experts and also not listening to the opinions of experts. If they're selecting expert opinions based on their own opinions then, if not their own brains, where did these opinions come from?
  - tptacek 3y ago
treis 3y ago
I don't think most people necessarily disagree with this: (1) The people who think that the market can be beat don't think most people can do it. They think most people can't but that they're special and can. Think most people agree with (2) and (4) as well. They just don't like the implications re: society and God that come with it. To the extent they get rejected it's to preserve the viability of the notions they hold. They admit (5) is something most people agree with. (3) and (6) they whittle down their extreme position to what most people agree with (7) is the closest to delivering what the title claims. But ultimately "better" is subjective and while I largely agree with the point it's not exactly an objective truth.
- gochi 3y ago
  >Think most people agree with (2) and (4) as well. They just don't like the implications re: society and God that come with it. To the extent they get rejected it's to preserve the viability of the notions they hold. This also operates the other way, and links to your statement in #1. Most people want to believe in the idea of pre-determined concepts because it makes them feel special when they aren't living a lesser pre-determined fate. There is zero evidence leaning to either side. It's much like the concept of god, where the only proof people can establish is that the concept exists therefore it justifies. This is a comforting thought to hold instead of sitting in the unknown.
version_five 3y ago
It's really just argument-bait, no? I didn't really see a consistent point, just "disagree with me".
- woodruffw 3y ago
  Yes. This looks like marketing chaff from someone trying to sell books.
  - the_only_law 3y ago
    This is the type of material HN wants in the front page I guess. Not surprising, it’s basically just a regurgitation of widely circulated here.
dataflow 3y ago
Can someone comment on #5? I'm a total layman, so this may just be my ignorance, but isn't it refuting a strawman? It seems to be claiming that reducing intake of the same substance reduces weight gain, but I've never heard anyone claim otherwise. Rather, the questions seems to concern whether (a) calories from different foods are equivalent for weight gain/loss purposes, and (b) whether different people eating the same amount of the same food would absorb the same calories. For example, I can imagine it being the case that if I cut my intake by 10%, I will gain 10% less weight, but another person would gain only 2% less weight. It might even depend on how much we are currently consuming, meaning some people could have a much harder time than others. He doesn't seem to even address these at all, let alone refute them?
- 1970-01-01 3y ago
  It's mostly sugar doing the damage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Obesity_and_metabolic_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Obesity_and_metabolic_sy... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Nutritional_displacement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Nutritional_displacement
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kcplate 3y ago
  I agree with their take. I have lost a significant amount of weight and the mechanics was certainly calories in < calories out. What makes it difficult for obese people is that you need a sustained caloric deficit for a long period and your body makes it really difficult to do that. I was successful using a high fat low carb (keto) diet only because the calories I ate from fat helped activate my satiety feelings better than other diets and that helped me control my caloric intake for 2 years. Other diets I had tried failed to trigger that satiety level and made them unsustainable.
  - prmph 3y ago
    But is anyone claiming otherwise? I’m not sure there is anyone on the face of the planet that will claim that a person will continue to be fat in perpetuity if they stop eating
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catlover76 3y ago
I feel like most people agree with these opinions. I personally happen to disagree with at least 3 and 4. I either agree or am agnostic and/or ambivalent about the others.
aWidebrant 3y ago
I think this is required reading on IQ and g: http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html http://bactra.org/weblog/523.html http://bactra.org/weblog/523.html On efficient markets, I'd recommend: https://economics.northwestern.edu/docs/events/nemmers/2004/nemmers-05-rubinstein-paper1.pdf https://economics.northwestern.edu/docs/events/nemmers/2004/...
- tptacek 3y ago
  Cosign on those, especially the second one, which is a deep dive into why it might be hard not to come up with a "g-factor" even if you deliberately made up bullshit tests (which is not what people did). Ned Block also has an excellent, deep, and very accessible piece --- more targeted to a lay audience than Cosma Shalizi's pieces, which are very much "about" statistics --- on what it is "heritability" means (tl;dr: it does not mean what most comments on HN seem to think it means): https://www.nedblock.us/papers/heritability.pdf https://www.nedblock.us/papers/heritability.pdf
carabiner 3y ago
This is part of the genre of straw man clickbait. It works because people are so trapped in their filter bubbles they have no idea what the opposite side actually thinks anymore. "Republicans think housecats are aliens - here's why I disagree," no they don't.
- nottorp 3y ago
  While that guy does seem to sell a book, calling everything you disagree with a political statement doesn't look any better to me...
asplake 3y ago
> 4. The world around us is explained entirely by physics. > True, knowing the Standard Model doesn’t help us predict most of the big things we care about Quite the caveat! The big things may be supervenient on physics, but explained by it, no
moomin 3y ago
I don’t have a particular take on the last point, but I _do_ have a strong take on the chart. If you think that the relationship of ordinary people’s life outcomes is linear to GDP, I have a bridge or two to sell you.
- richbell 3y ago
  Especially if GDP is rising but GDP per capita is declining.
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gtowey 3y ago
The thing that gets me about the author's statements is the assertion that things things are 100% true. If you said that these things are generally true, but have exceptions to these rules, then I would be more likely to agree. But I detest the kind of absolute-ist, black-and -white thinking represented here. For instance, while physics is really good at making practical predictions about the physical reality of things we can observe, it mostly fails to describe why things behave as they do. It keeps trying to describe the underlying reality of the universe, but it's likely that the true nature of it is so much stranger than we can imagine right now. Or that calories in vs calories out is the only possible cause of obesity. I agree that for probably 99.9% of people this is true, but to say that it's impossible that hormonal imbalance or other biological causes are not possible is just plain stupid. I know that lots of people think they are exceptions who probably aren't, but some of them actually do have more complex issues at play.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "but to say that it's impossible that hormonal imbalance or other biological causes are not possible is just plain stupid." But, things like hormonal imbalances and biological causes would effect the "calories out" portion of the formula, no?
  - gtowey 3y ago
    While your statement is probably correct, I've not known anyone who talks about CICO as anything other than "diet and exercise". This is why the absolute statement is a problem, it narrows they way most people think about these things. It becomes a substitute for nuanced explanations.
    - porkbeer 3y ago
      Even with huge confounding factors, tracking and controlling ci, correlates almost directly to co after such adjustments. Arguments that cico isnt absolute are technically correct but pedantic and unhelpful. None of this addresses the problems of willpower and differince in stimulus humans experince, nor the psychology of overeating as a coping mechanism, both of which seem to underpin the epidemic rather than math.
tptacek 3y ago
None of these arguments are interesting. Some of them are done to death, like "efficient markets". Others are settled, like the VARK "learning style" model. I'm pretty sure "most people" don't have an opinion one way or the other about how much of the world the standard model explains. The effect of the whole piece is of engagement bait.
anonym29 3y ago
Frankly, I'm shocked you made it to page 1 of HN with your second point. Be prepared for the armies of trolls who are going to harass you over that one, never mind the repeated finding that the r² between lifetime odds of being in a car accident and IQ (as a proxy for g) exceeds 0.8, along with other strong statistical correlation between IQ and lifespan, lifetime income, being nominated for a nobel prize, winning a nobel prize, and that's still just scratching the surface. In fact, if you add up all correlations, adjusted for strength, existing research suggests there is no other single data point (age, race, gender, sex, religion, country of birth, parent(s) SES, parent(s) educational attainment, disability, BMI, standardized test scores, etc) that predicts as much, as powerfully as IQ (again, as a proxy for g) does. I am not taking a position for or against these findings, and it's fair to note that all of these findings occur within the broader paradigm of the replication crisis, affecting even the most prolific studies oft cited for some of the most widespread beliefs held by the scientific community, which more or less weakens the "signal to noise ratio" of the scientific community's consensus, so take those studies I've mentioned with as much a grain of salt as any other. For anyone downvoting this comment, could I please ask why, or at least whether for ideological reasons (i.e. you disagree with the ideas I am discussing) or form (i.e. tone is wrong, appears disingenuous, etc). I respect your right to do so, but I intentionally attempted to maintain an inoffensive, neutral, unbiased stance here. As a non-neurotypical person, common perception can be difficult for me to absorb without explicit feedback, so any feedback is appreciated.
- nocoiner 3y ago
  Wait, am I stupid or smart because I’ve been in a car accident?
  - anonym29 3y ago
    Studies suggest that your IQ can be used to make strong predictions about your lifetime odds of getting into a car accident, but that doesn't flow backwards - you cannot use someone's occurrence or nonoccurrence of being in a car accident to make a reasonably strong prediction about their intelligence, because their intelligence isn't the only thing affecting their lifetime likelihood of being in a car accident.
littlestymaar 3y ago
“Efficient market hypothesis” is probably one of the most misleadingly named concept: this result has nothing do to with market “efficiency” (by any common meanings of this word). If market prices were purely random, then nobody could ever “beat the market” either, but a market that give purely random valuation to assets is the least efficient market possible: it means that price is just completely useless as an indicator of anything. Other than this, this is just a collection of bad takes based on flawed understanding of topics (inheritable ≠ innate, GDP ≠ well being, etc.)
sambapa 3y ago
Huh, we solved physics? That's new to me.
1970-01-01 3y ago
Opinion #6 has a 44-year-old study as a backup to the claim. More recent (current century) claims do refute it.
sshine 3y ago
This is clickbait for the author's book.
smitty1e 3y ago
> 4. The world around us is explained entirely by physics. It is not the case that there is a model scaling from the sub-atomic to the universal level that offers complete predictive capability. He says: >The remaining controversies of physics, from string theory to supersymmetry, are primarily theoretical issues only relevant at extremely high energies. Fair enough, but using the word "entirely" in the section heading is inappropriate.

43 points by sieste 3y ago

> But pretty much every economic indicator is positive. Even the indicators that pessimistic pundits like to complain about are largely from areas where wages have been stagnant, or inequality has been rising rather than genuine decline. I am going to take issue with this one; because as standards rise, the more unachievable they can become. Example: 100 years ago, it wasn’t nearly as hard to buy a house. Sure, they might have had leaky roofs or lacked electricity or lacked indoor plumbing, but that was pretty normal. Your wife wasn’t going to lose her mind if you told her the outhouse was the only option. Now here we are. Sure, our homes are way better - and more unaffordable for everyone. Just saying it’s better than it was - so stop being so pessimistic ignores how comparatively out of reach life feels. It would be like if the only computer you could buy in 2027 was $8000, and had the equivalent of a RTX 7090 in it. “Stop whining - it’s so much better than they used to be” is not my complaint.

bmmayer1 3y ago
> because as standards rise, the more unachievable they can become Why should "standards" be relevant in the measurement of long-term economic indicators? Doesn't the very stack that standards have risen prove the core point that life has gotten better?
- gjsman-1000 3y ago
  It means life has gotten better for those that can keep up and afford it. It also means life sucks more, and is far more hopeless and depressing, for people who can’t. Extreme example: LA.
- caeril 3y ago
  Rising standards create floors and ceilings. To use the GP's example: if the median standard home has electricity, a minimum insulation R-value, a minimum grade of roof, minimum square footage, bathroom plumbing, land setbacks, etc, governments tend to align their habitability inspection requirements with those standards. Let's say hypothetically that County X establishes the 2023 habitability requirements, and these requirements by market necessity cost a minimum of $120k for the dwelling and $120k for the land. Let's say you're a single guy on minimum wage who is absolutely fine not having electricity, is ok with dealing with the occasional roof leak, and has no problem using a composting toilet. You want to buy a home, and you can absolutely afford it, but County X is preventing you from doing so because the standards have been set by people making more than minimum wage.
jlund-molfese 3y ago
Isn’t it land that’s gotten (unaffordably) more expensive, not houses themselves? There are still places you can buy $50K or $100K homes in the US, which has a lot of land. But you’d pay 10X more in a desirable metro area.

napsec 3y ago

I'm not convinced most people disagree with these.

wongarsu 3y ago
Some of those are definitely in the realm of "if you agree, it's often wiser not to say so". People weren't amused at all when James Watson said that intelligence is heritable, and that like basically all other heritable attributes there is a difference between the average of different "races". [1] 1: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46856779 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46856779
- y-curious 3y ago
  Yep, that was the only "controversial" opinion in this piece. Oh, intelligence is heritable due to genetics? Certain genetic groups have more incidence of Sickle Cell Anemia? Let's put those together...
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    The problem is that once you say that something has a strong genetic component, two different genetic groups having the exact same distribution of that attribute would be really surprising. But while we are fine with different genetic groups having different incidences for hair color, nose shapes or skin pigmentation, and are slowly coming to grips with different genetic groups having different incidences of various illnesses, and sometimes different reactions to them, the idea that different genetic groups could have statistically significant intelligence differences feels wrong.
    - dennis_jeeves1 3y ago
      >But while we are fine with different genetic groups having different incidences for hair color, nose shapes or skin pigmentation, For most people differences among different groups stop at the brain ;)
    - 3y ago

JimtheCoder 3y ago

With regards to #2... Maybe I am not smart enough for this, but can someone define "General Intelligence" for me? "Practically speaking, the best way to become smarter is to learn a lot of stuff and cultivate a lot of skills. Since knowledge and skills are more specific than general intelligence, that may be less than we desire, but it still matters a lot." Would "learning a lot of stuff and cultivating a lot of skills" not boost your general intelligence?

pgwhalen 3y ago
> Maybe I am not smart enough for this, but can someone define "General Intelligence" for me? I think about this a lot and frankly don't have a good answer, but my current definition is something like "the speed and the depth at which someone can synthesize and comprehend new ideas." It's by no means perfect, but when I observe people around me that just "seem smart" to me, the above statement is generally true.

yellow_lead 3y ago

> Children don’t learn languages faster than adults, but they do reach higher levels of mastery. > adults simply plateau at a non-native level of ability, given continued practice. If adults plateau and kids don't, kids do learn languages faster.

jjnoakes 3y ago
If by "learn" you mean "native mastery" then I suppose you are saying only kids reach that level, so they are "faster" simply because they are the only ones to finish. The article considers "learn" to mean roughly "fluency", short of native mastery, and adults tend to reach fluency faster, then plateau. So depending on nuance, you and the article are both right in some sense.

gvd 3y ago

I really hate this "markets are efficient" bullshit. The markets are too slow because they don't incorporate the true cost of stuff. The environment is going to shit and by the time the markets have incorporated that cost, it is too late.

JimtheCoder 3y ago
I think he is referring to publicly traded markets, like stock exchanges. The less liquidity, the more inefficiency there is...the environment being an extreme example...
apsec112 3y ago
Markets are efficient in the sense that you can't personally make money by trading stocks, not in the sense that the economy is optimal for society as a whole. Pollution is the classic example of a negative externality that harms society by offloading part of the cost of individual behavior to others. But you can't personally make money by exploiting the societal inefficiency of pollution. (In game theory terms, not every Nash equilibrium is a Pareto optimum.)
catlover76 3y ago
> The environment is going to shit and by the time the markets have incorporated that cost, it is too late. I'm not sure that measuring externalities like that are what markets are for. In the context of this post, for example, the author seems to be casting a pretty narrow net here, and talking about whether market prices are accurate measures of what other people are willing to pay for a thing. To speak of markets as serving society poorly by not incorporating environmental impacts is to speak of other than what he is talking about when he says "markets are rational".
mikhailfranco 3y ago
There would seem to be a gap in the market for indices of climate-linked prices, then people could discover trends, and perhaps trade on their perceptions of mis-pricing. See my detailed comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172299 Can I sell you my apartment in Miami? Would you park your Ferrari in the basement?

woodruffw 3y ago

I think most people agree with most of these; what they don’t agree with is the various ways in which they’re used to advance or justify repugnant normative claims (shaming people for being overweight, blindly asserting the market’s efficiency in all cases, insinuating that social racial assignments are a good predictor of intelligence, &c.)

rileymat2 3y ago
The formulation of them is also interesting, for example CICO is true, but the composition of food matters so much because the CI affects the CO they are not completely independent, there is much more to the story.
EA-3167 3y ago
Or that since most people are at least somewhat better off overall, that justifies the gap between the richest and the poorest in the world. "You were starving 30 years ago, now you're merely hungry and miserable while you can watch me eat fois gras" is not an argument that will appeal to anyone who isn't also enjoying the god life and trying to justify that.
- andriesm 3y ago
  I'm always amused by how much people value wealth differences above absolute measures of poverty. I am more a fan of, let's increase wealth inequality even more if it means we can raise the bottom. In America very few people die of starvation, but Americans complain bitterly about the fact that others have it so much better than the people at the bottom. I have been in many truly poor places where people would give anything to trade their miserable starvation at the door lives for that inequality that poor Americans have to endure.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    This is how we're wired as a species, and frankly more than just a species. We don't just look at what we have and what we want, we look at what other people have and ask ourselves why they got it and we didn't. At a basic level it's an instinct that exists in lower primates, and in us as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg The difference with us is that we can learn and understand the reasons why one person gets a "grape" and the other a "cucumber"... and those answers are often not just unsatisfying, but infuriating.

dmn322 3y ago

For #2, the idea that the evidence is overwhelming is just made up. The idea that the “experts” agree with him is laughable. That’s not what the majority of cognitive scientists believe at this point except in a few niches that are largely ignored by actual members of the field. So he just cherry-picked his “experts”. This is the problem with “rationalists”.. . They don’t actually use their brains, they defer to “authority”, arguing that anyone that doesn’t listen to authorities is arrogant, but then they pick who they deem to be authorities to match their pre-existing opinions.

gochi 3y ago
It's very circular, I found it ironic and even his advice contradicts his belief about #2.
kypro 3y ago
The evidence is overwhelming that intelligence is at least partly heritable. It's uncontroversial among experts to say that it's likely around 50% heritable. It's perhaps a little overstated to say it's "largely" heritable and that the evidence for this is overwhelming. Being charitable here perhaps the author was just saying that the evidence is overwhelming that intelligence is heritable (to some degree), and that it's their opinion that it's "largely" heritable (assuming they mean 50%+). If by "largely" they just meant somewhere in the region of 50%, then I think this is a fairly accurate statement. The author shares my view on this. If I had to guess intelligence is likely to be somewhere around to 60-80% heritable in the West. However, in countries where malnutrition, disease and lack of basic education are factors these are likely more important than genetics. > This is the problem with “rationalists”.. . They don’t actually use their brains, they defer to “authority”, arguing that anyone that doesn’t listen to authorities is arrogant, but then they pick who they deem to be authorities to match their pre-existing opinions. Ad hominem. Also your criticising rationalists for both blindly overweighting the opinions of experts and also not listening to the opinions of experts. If they're selecting expert opinions based on their own opinions then, if not their own brains, where did these opinions come from?
- tptacek 3y ago

treis 3y ago

I don't think most people necessarily disagree with this: (1) The people who think that the market can be beat don't think most people can do it. They think most people can't but that they're special and can. Think most people agree with (2) and (4) as well. They just don't like the implications re: society and God that come with it. To the extent they get rejected it's to preserve the viability of the notions they hold. They admit (5) is something most people agree with. (3) and (6) they whittle down their extreme position to what most people agree with (7) is the closest to delivering what the title claims. But ultimately "better" is subjective and while I largely agree with the point it's not exactly an objective truth.

gochi 3y ago
>Think most people agree with (2) and (4) as well. They just don't like the implications re: society and God that come with it. To the extent they get rejected it's to preserve the viability of the notions they hold. This also operates the other way, and links to your statement in #1. Most people want to believe in the idea of pre-determined concepts because it makes them feel special when they aren't living a lesser pre-determined fate. There is zero evidence leaning to either side. It's much like the concept of god, where the only proof people can establish is that the concept exists therefore it justifies. This is a comforting thought to hold instead of sitting in the unknown.

version_five 3y ago

It's really just argument-bait, no? I didn't really see a consistent point, just "disagree with me".

woodruffw 3y ago
Yes. This looks like marketing chaff from someone trying to sell books.
- the_only_law 3y ago
  This is the type of material HN wants in the front page I guess. Not surprising, it’s basically just a regurgitation of widely circulated here.

dataflow 3y ago

Can someone comment on #5? I'm a total layman, so this may just be my ignorance, but isn't it refuting a strawman? It seems to be claiming that reducing intake of the same substance reduces weight gain, but I've never heard anyone claim otherwise. Rather, the questions seems to concern whether (a) calories from different foods are equivalent for weight gain/loss purposes, and (b) whether different people eating the same amount of the same food would absorb the same calories. For example, I can imagine it being the case that if I cut my intake by 10%, I will gain 10% less weight, but another person would gain only 2% less weight. It might even depend on how much we are currently consuming, meaning some people could have a much harder time than others. He doesn't seem to even address these at all, let alone refute them?

1970-01-01 3y ago
It's mostly sugar doing the damage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Obesity_and_metabolic_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Obesity_and_metabolic_sy... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Nutritional_displacement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar#Nutritional_displacement
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kcplate 3y ago
I agree with their take. I have lost a significant amount of weight and the mechanics was certainly calories in < calories out. What makes it difficult for obese people is that you need a sustained caloric deficit for a long period and your body makes it really difficult to do that. I was successful using a high fat low carb (keto) diet only because the calories I ate from fat helped activate my satiety feelings better than other diets and that helped me control my caloric intake for 2 years. Other diets I had tried failed to trigger that satiety level and made them unsustainable.
- prmph 3y ago
  But is anyone claiming otherwise? I’m not sure there is anyone on the face of the planet that will claim that a person will continue to be fat in perpetuity if they stop eating

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catlover76 3y ago

I feel like most people agree with these opinions. I personally happen to disagree with at least 3 and 4. I either agree or am agnostic and/or ambivalent about the others.

aWidebrant 3y ago

I think this is required reading on IQ and g: http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html http://bactra.org/weblog/523.html http://bactra.org/weblog/523.html On efficient markets, I'd recommend: https://economics.northwestern.edu/docs/events/nemmers/2004/nemmers-05-rubinstein-paper1.pdf https://economics.northwestern.edu/docs/events/nemmers/2004/...

tptacek 3y ago
Cosign on those, especially the second one, which is a deep dive into why it might be hard not to come up with a "g-factor" even if you deliberately made up bullshit tests (which is not what people did). Ned Block also has an excellent, deep, and very accessible piece --- more targeted to a lay audience than Cosma Shalizi's pieces, which are very much "about" statistics --- on what it is "heritability" means (tl;dr: it does not mean what most comments on HN seem to think it means): https://www.nedblock.us/papers/heritability.pdf https://www.nedblock.us/papers/heritability.pdf

carabiner 3y ago

This is part of the genre of straw man clickbait. It works because people are so trapped in their filter bubbles they have no idea what the opposite side actually thinks anymore. "Republicans think housecats are aliens - here's why I disagree," no they don't.

nottorp 3y ago
While that guy does seem to sell a book, calling everything you disagree with a political statement doesn't look any better to me...

asplake 3y ago

> 4. The world around us is explained entirely by physics. > True, knowing the Standard Model doesn’t help us predict most of the big things we care about Quite the caveat! The big things may be supervenient on physics, but explained by it, no

moomin 3y ago

I don’t have a particular take on the last point, but I _do_ have a strong take on the chart. If you think that the relationship of ordinary people’s life outcomes is linear to GDP, I have a bridge or two to sell you.

richbell 3y ago
Especially if GDP is rising but GDP per capita is declining.

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gtowey 3y ago

The thing that gets me about the author's statements is the assertion that things things are 100% true. If you said that these things are generally true, but have exceptions to these rules, then I would be more likely to agree. But I detest the kind of absolute-ist, black-and -white thinking represented here. For instance, while physics is really good at making practical predictions about the physical reality of things we can observe, it mostly fails to describe why things behave as they do. It keeps trying to describe the underlying reality of the universe, but it's likely that the true nature of it is so much stranger than we can imagine right now. Or that calories in vs calories out is the only possible cause of obesity. I agree that for probably 99.9% of people this is true, but to say that it's impossible that hormonal imbalance or other biological causes are not possible is just plain stupid. I know that lots of people think they are exceptions who probably aren't, but some of them actually do have more complex issues at play.

JimtheCoder 3y ago
"but to say that it's impossible that hormonal imbalance or other biological causes are not possible is just plain stupid." But, things like hormonal imbalances and biological causes would effect the "calories out" portion of the formula, no?
- gtowey 3y ago
  While your statement is probably correct, I've not known anyone who talks about CICO as anything other than "diet and exercise". This is why the absolute statement is a problem, it narrows they way most people think about these things. It becomes a substitute for nuanced explanations.
  - porkbeer 3y ago
    Even with huge confounding factors, tracking and controlling ci, correlates almost directly to co after such adjustments. Arguments that cico isnt absolute are technically correct but pedantic and unhelpful. None of this addresses the problems of willpower and differince in stimulus humans experince, nor the psychology of overeating as a coping mechanism, both of which seem to underpin the epidemic rather than math.

tptacek 3y ago

None of these arguments are interesting. Some of them are done to death, like "efficient markets". Others are settled, like the VARK "learning style" model. I'm pretty sure "most people" don't have an opinion one way or the other about how much of the world the standard model explains. The effect of the whole piece is of engagement bait.

anonym29 3y ago

Frankly, I'm shocked you made it to page 1 of HN with your second point. Be prepared for the armies of trolls who are going to harass you over that one, never mind the repeated finding that the r² between lifetime odds of being in a car accident and IQ (as a proxy for g) exceeds 0.8, along with other strong statistical correlation between IQ and lifespan, lifetime income, being nominated for a nobel prize, winning a nobel prize, and that's still just scratching the surface. In fact, if you add up all correlations, adjusted for strength, existing research suggests there is no other single data point (age, race, gender, sex, religion, country of birth, parent(s) SES, parent(s) educational attainment, disability, BMI, standardized test scores, etc) that predicts as much, as powerfully as IQ (again, as a proxy for g) does. I am not taking a position for or against these findings, and it's fair to note that all of these findings occur within the broader paradigm of the replication crisis, affecting even the most prolific studies oft cited for some of the most widespread beliefs held by the scientific community, which more or less weakens the "signal to noise ratio" of the scientific community's consensus, so take those studies I've mentioned with as much a grain of salt as any other. For anyone downvoting this comment, could I please ask why, or at least whether for ideological reasons (i.e. you disagree with the ideas I am discussing) or form (i.e. tone is wrong, appears disingenuous, etc). I respect your right to do so, but I intentionally attempted to maintain an inoffensive, neutral, unbiased stance here. As a non-neurotypical person, common perception can be difficult for me to absorb without explicit feedback, so any feedback is appreciated.

nocoiner 3y ago
Wait, am I stupid or smart because I’ve been in a car accident?
- anonym29 3y ago
  Studies suggest that your IQ can be used to make strong predictions about your lifetime odds of getting into a car accident, but that doesn't flow backwards - you cannot use someone's occurrence or nonoccurrence of being in a car accident to make a reasonably strong prediction about their intelligence, because their intelligence isn't the only thing affecting their lifetime likelihood of being in a car accident.

littlestymaar 3y ago

“Efficient market hypothesis” is probably one of the most misleadingly named concept: this result has nothing do to with market “efficiency” (by any common meanings of this word). If market prices were purely random, then nobody could ever “beat the market” either, but a market that give purely random valuation to assets is the least efficient market possible: it means that price is just completely useless as an indicator of anything. Other than this, this is just a collection of bad takes based on flawed understanding of topics (inheritable ≠ innate, GDP ≠ well being, etc.)

sambapa 3y ago

Huh, we solved physics? That's new to me.

1970-01-01 3y ago

Opinion #6 has a 44-year-old study as a backup to the claim. More recent (current century) claims do refute it.

sshine 3y ago

This is clickbait for the author's book.

smitty1e 3y ago

> 4. The world around us is explained entirely by physics. It is not the case that there is a model scaling from the sub-atomic to the universal level that offers complete predictive capability. He says: >The remaining controversies of physics, from string theory to supersymmetry, are primarily theoretical issues only relevant at extremely high energies. Fair enough, but using the word "entirely" in the section heading is inappropriate.