lambdaphagy

12 ms·

61.
by lambdaphagy 3y ago
Total population has oscillated for 20 years, but it would be mistaken to conclude that it's reached steady state because it's also been aging all the while. Meanwhile, TFR in Russia has been sub-replacement since at least 1990.
62.
by lambdaphagy 4y ago
I think you're getting downvoted for suggesting that all the great world religious traditions were comparable in their influence on Western civilization, the civilization that the author knows best, is part of, and writes about. In poi
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by lambdaphagy 4y ago
I used to have much the same view as the author. My view changed after reading what Christian theologians and philosophers actually wrote on the topic, as opposed to what I had just kind of figured they must have written. When I read Aquin
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by lambdaphagy 4y ago
1. School funding is actually somewhat progressive: https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2017/06/22/no-us-school-f... 2. People who are concerned about the allegedly regressive character of public school fund
65.
by lambdaphagy 4y ago
Imagine that there were a government program that taught infants how to walk: the infants enter the program unable to walk, and a year later just about all of them can. Now imagine trying to kill that program, or even taking your own childr
66.
by lambdaphagy 4y ago
The article makes several important criticisms of EA that are obscured beneath self-parodically uncharitable language. The insults are self-defeating in that they suggest the authors can't think calmly about the targets of their criti
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by lambdaphagy 4y ago
If your political tribe controls a given institution, then there is generally no need to do things by legislative fiat-- you simply do them, and your choices are status quo. Meanwhile the patrons of a library have essentially no say in who
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
At the risk of overinterpreting your comment, I think most religious people would be surprised to see their religion characterized as an ersatz government social service.
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
I'm not saying you should reflexively believe the opposite of what any given source reports, just bear in mind the track records.
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
My original comment pertained to a general pattern of communication from public health agencies-- I believe you were the first to bring up that tweet. But if you want to explore the topic, by 14 January 2020 the virus had been sequenced for
71.
by lambdaphagy 5y ago
WHO was largely denying the possibility of airborne transmission as late as July 2020. https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/71/9/2311/5867798
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
It's simply a matter of applying a prior: when I hear an organization's claim, I consider the base rate at which past claims have proven trustworthy, adjusting for whether past errors were honest mistakes, noble lies, culpable fai
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
Where have you heard that before?
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
My understanding is that "invention of the printing press" generally refers to movable type, the thing that caused a revolution in the mass production of written material. Other techniques like block printing or indeed any other
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
Yes, it's a minor inconvenience when it's expected and you have confidence in a good prognosis. It can be tortuous when you don't know whether it's about to get worse.
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
Glad you're ok, but I'm surprised you describe SOB as a slight inconvenience. In general, SOB is a pretty bad sign-- you're having trouble getting the one thing you'll die fastest without. Sure, you can put up with tem
77.
by lambdaphagy 5y ago
In common law, there is a doctrine called "strict liability". Some activities, e.g. building demolition, are so inherently risky that, in the event of a tort, the court does not bother to determine whether the defendant was malic
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
There was a time in my life where I would have made approximately minimum wage at a nominal 40 hour work week, and far below that in consideration of actual hours worked. I didn't live alone. I don't know whether you would have
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
Some of the constructs in this paper are pretty tendentious, without much self-awareness about it. For example, one of the six measures they use for alignment with scientific consensus is: "should the government fund stem cell researc
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
> scourge on civilization international community a fight for the cause of democratic norms rules-based international order consistent pushback “innovation” mistaken beliefs and not supported by any evidence quirky ideas chattering class
81.
by lambdaphagy 5y ago
Aquinas acknowledged heavy philosophical debts to Maimonides and Averroes while critiquing them in particulars. And as for the theology, I don't see how you get "looked down on" from: https://aquinas.cc/la&#x
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
What prediction would this theory make for Sweden?
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
In surveys of hundreds of human cultures, I don't believe anthropologists have found a single one in which women are, on average, even as tall as men. Though average height differs considerably between groups, there appears to be a co
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
It's 0.002%/yr. Mostly just impressed that we can measure this at all.
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
The substance you're talking about is already essentially banned in the developed world.
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by lambdaphagy 5y ago
Cooling costs 1/3 the energy of heating per degree day, but comes in for more hate because it seems decadent.
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by lambdaphagy 6y ago
I hope no one ever posts a horrible thing like calling for the death of a politician on twitter.
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by lambdaphagy 6y ago
Or take the 1954 attack on the Capitol, in which Puerto Rican separatists opened fire from a balcony, wounding five members of Congress. That seems to me at least as bad as what happened yesterday. Did this discredit the cause of Puerto
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by lambdaphagy 6y ago
Does bombing the Capitol strike you as a qualitatively lesser offense? I say they are both bad. What do you think?
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by lambdaphagy 6y ago
I don't think that's actually true. Weather Underground, for example, bombed the Capitol in 1971. ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/03/02/a-... ) One of the group&

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