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Its just people. People are the same everywhere, and are fundamentally unpredictable systems. How large groups behave does depends to a certain extent on contex

Its just people. People are the same everywhere, and are fundamentally unpredictable systems. How large groups behave does depends to a certain extent on context: by compared to others and your socio-economic situation. How they publicly expressed their values are entirely different from their behavior. This is to the dread of incumbent governments and pollsters. If you starve a wealthy man for 2 weeks he will be ready to cannibalize. If you create a metric upon which you place a lot of economic-value, soooner or later it will get gamed and corrupted. If you remove checks and balances humans being unpredictable will turn on each other. One can choose to ignore this fact, but at the cost of endless grief to oneself and those around.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hoseyor 2y ago
I disagree that people are unpredictable systems. The ruling class very much knows that people are not only predictable, but even programmable. It’s just the aspirational middle and some lower classes that have internalized the idea that there is no way to predict and that every human is the same and all different groups and people are equal in characteristics and qualities. For example, liars will lie, predictably, even if expressed as a function of probability.
Aurornis 2y ago
More accurately, I think it's just confusion about the Law of Large Numbers. People confuse population-scale average behaviors with guarantees about individuals. In any country you can find outliers that don't match the country's norms. The hard part is that the devious ones can leverage their country's (or culture, or state, or relgious affiliation, etc.) norms to disguise their bad behavior. It's easier to scam someone if you pretend to blend in with groups known for being trustworthy.
toast0 2y ago
You are saying humans are unpredictable, but then you make predictions. I think you are saying that people's behavior changes based on stimulus. That doesn't mean they're unpredictable, just that the prediction shouldn't be unchanged behavior regardless of stimulus.
- d4mi3n 2y ago
  I read it as the GP saying there's often confusion about assuming behavior about individuals as opposed to making predictions based on trends of large groups of individuals. For some population, you can safely state that some portion of them will contract appendicitis. You cannot make that same assertion about an individual person. This likewise carries to specific behaviors (theft, charity, becoming a pet owner, etc).
  - toast0 2y ago
    The same is true of say washing machine motors. You can predict that ~ 10% of them will fail in a certain amount of time (and even go into how they fail), but that doesn't tell you much about a specific motor. Or sports events, if you say there's a 25% chance of team A winning a single match; the results of the match don't support or refute your prediction... you'd have to run many matches to see if your prediction was empirically correct.
fumufumufumu 2y ago
Culture has a large influence. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12785802.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12785802.amp
r3trohack3r 2y ago
> People are the same everywhere This is not true in general. Environment does not only influence behavior, it selects for it. As evidenced by our ability to breed behavior traits in domesticated animals - I.e. ragdoll cats, retrievers, rat terriers, etc. have distinct behavioral traits that have been intentionally selected for.
- cenamus 2y ago
  Those dog breeds differ by like a factor of 10 in size, way more than humans basically in any aspect. But yeah, depending on how strong the selective force is... Ashkenazy Jews have an average IQ of what, around 130 points? But on the other side also suffer a lot more genetic disorders. Interesting are also the altitude tolerance of Sherpa, body morphology of the Kenian runners and the dive endurance of a particular South east asian tribe (if I remember correctly), some organ is able to store a lot more blood than usually
ashoeafoot 2y ago
If you have a really well working economic system you can bribe everyone to be nice and you declare yourselves saints and history ended. Still makes those that upend these economic systems the evil ones. Even if paradise burns away the candle earth on both ends. but i digress, and its hard to communicate that its better to end good times with ability to move, then to be caught in paradise, when the resource window falls shut. you want to be able to wiggle and act in the dark times, keep it together , have tech thats maintainable but not existence ending , while wild hordes fight for the last glimmering bits of the golden era.
bufferoverflow 2y ago
> People are the same everywhere That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth. Source: I lived in 3 different countries + an isolated island. But you don't even need my biased opinion on the matter. We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them.
- hnhg 2y ago
  Some of those cultures that apparently celebrate gay people were also chemically castrating them not that long ago, and also have a lot of locals who still hate gay people and cannot wait to get back to the old ways. The rise of the far right in Europe and USA might challenge your idea of fixed regional cultures quite soon.
  - tomp 2y ago
    The main drive of who you call “far right” is precisely to import less people that want to throw gays off roofs.
    - hnhg 2y ago
      Some of them, maybe. Some others are just not tolerant of LGBT lifestyles and equality at all. Also, I don't think someone who wants limited immigration is necessarily far right.
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        *)limiting ILLEGAL immigration, emphasis on the word illegal. Nobody in Europe has a problem with LEGAL immigration, but the left wing parties and MSM keeps ignoring this and sweeping illegal immigration along the legal immigration banner to drive the narrative that Europeans are racists who hate all immigrants in order to justify (social) media censorship and restrictions on free speech to fight the "right wing extremist nazi" boogie man, which ironically, actually fuels the swing towards the extremist right wing, because the regular public discourse and communication channels for criticizing illegal immigration in public are censored/disabled.
nilslindemann 2y ago
What you say seems to be an exaggerated view of the world ("It's just people"). You confuse a few people with sociopathic trails with the average normal human with a heart and a conscience. The examples you give come from environments which are likely to attract sociopaths. You yourself are with a higher probability a narcissist than the average human [1]. [1] https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/96cff233-cefd-45b9-a409-516498228112 https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/96cff233-cefd-45...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

hoseyor 2y ago

I disagree that people are unpredictable systems. The ruling class very much knows that people are not only predictable, but even programmable. It’s just the aspirational middle and some lower classes that have internalized the idea that there is no way to predict and that every human is the same and all different groups and people are equal in characteristics and qualities. For example, liars will lie, predictably, even if expressed as a function of probability.

Aurornis 2y ago

More accurately, I think it's just confusion about the Law of Large Numbers. People confuse population-scale average behaviors with guarantees about individuals. In any country you can find outliers that don't match the country's norms. The hard part is that the devious ones can leverage their country's (or culture, or state, or relgious affiliation, etc.) norms to disguise their bad behavior. It's easier to scam someone if you pretend to blend in with groups known for being trustworthy.

toast0 2y ago

You are saying humans are unpredictable, but then you make predictions. I think you are saying that people's behavior changes based on stimulus. That doesn't mean they're unpredictable, just that the prediction shouldn't be unchanged behavior regardless of stimulus.

d4mi3n 2y ago
I read it as the GP saying there's often confusion about assuming behavior about individuals as opposed to making predictions based on trends of large groups of individuals. For some population, you can safely state that some portion of them will contract appendicitis. You cannot make that same assertion about an individual person. This likewise carries to specific behaviors (theft, charity, becoming a pet owner, etc).
- toast0 2y ago
  The same is true of say washing machine motors. You can predict that ~ 10% of them will fail in a certain amount of time (and even go into how they fail), but that doesn't tell you much about a specific motor. Or sports events, if you say there's a 25% chance of team A winning a single match; the results of the match don't support or refute your prediction... you'd have to run many matches to see if your prediction was empirically correct.

fumufumufumu 2y ago

Culture has a large influence. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12785802.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12785802.amp

r3trohack3r 2y ago

> People are the same everywhere This is not true in general. Environment does not only influence behavior, it selects for it. As evidenced by our ability to breed behavior traits in domesticated animals - I.e. ragdoll cats, retrievers, rat terriers, etc. have distinct behavioral traits that have been intentionally selected for.

cenamus 2y ago
Those dog breeds differ by like a factor of 10 in size, way more than humans basically in any aspect. But yeah, depending on how strong the selective force is... Ashkenazy Jews have an average IQ of what, around 130 points? But on the other side also suffer a lot more genetic disorders. Interesting are also the altitude tolerance of Sherpa, body morphology of the Kenian runners and the dive endurance of a particular South east asian tribe (if I remember correctly), some organ is able to store a lot more blood than usually

ashoeafoot 2y ago

If you have a really well working economic system you can bribe everyone to be nice and you declare yourselves saints and history ended. Still makes those that upend these economic systems the evil ones. Even if paradise burns away the candle earth on both ends. but i digress, and its hard to communicate that its better to end good times with ability to move, then to be caught in paradise, when the resource window falls shut. you want to be able to wiggle and act in the dark times, keep it together , have tech thats maintainable but not existence ending , while wild hordes fight for the last glimmering bits of the golden era.

bufferoverflow 2y ago

> People are the same everywhere That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth. Source: I lived in 3 different countries + an isolated island. But you don't even need my biased opinion on the matter. We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them.

hnhg 2y ago
Some of those cultures that apparently celebrate gay people were also chemically castrating them not that long ago, and also have a lot of locals who still hate gay people and cannot wait to get back to the old ways. The rise of the far right in Europe and USA might challenge your idea of fixed regional cultures quite soon.
- tomp 2y ago
  The main drive of who you call “far right” is precisely to import less people that want to throw gays off roofs.
  - hnhg 2y ago
    Some of them, maybe. Some others are just not tolerant of LGBT lifestyles and equality at all. Also, I don't think someone who wants limited immigration is necessarily far right.
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      *)limiting ILLEGAL immigration, emphasis on the word illegal. Nobody in Europe has a problem with LEGAL immigration, but the left wing parties and MSM keeps ignoring this and sweeping illegal immigration along the legal immigration banner to drive the narrative that Europeans are racists who hate all immigrants in order to justify (social) media censorship and restrictions on free speech to fight the "right wing extremist nazi" boogie man, which ironically, actually fuels the swing towards the extremist right wing, because the regular public discourse and communication channels for criticizing illegal immigration in public are censored/disabled.

nilslindemann 2y ago

What you say seems to be an exaggerated view of the world ("It's just people"). You confuse a few people with sociopathic trails with the average normal human with a heart and a conscience. The examples you give come from environments which are likely to attract sociopaths. You yourself are with a higher probability a narcissist than the average human [1]. [1] https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/96cff233-cefd-45b9-a409-516498228112 https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/96cff233-cefd-45...