This was such a fun and informative essay, even though it is embarrassing to discover that my car (a Honda Civic) is about as un-fancy as it gets.
Your purple-ball example is a really useful way to think about so many hot-button issues. I immediately thought of Covid and abortion rights, two areas where sides take an absolutist position in an effort to be as protective as possible. Most people are more in the middle (for example, I am as pro-choice as they come, but even I would agree to restrictions on abortion after 15 weeks, if that meant that women had better access in the first trimester). So purple-balling encourages polarization and discourages working together to solve problems.
It's a definite problem that I've noticed. For some reason people think they're more convincing if they reject all exceptions or caveats, but I find those arguments less convincing
Brilliant! A joy to catch-up on your writing today. The first part absolutely cracked me up and the second part is just a very direct, quality observation on motives: "These atheists never spent much time mulling over the consequences of Zoroastrianism flourishing in Iran 2600 years ago. Rather, the new atheists cared about specific certain theocratic overreaches in the present day."
I think, too, in the land of oversimplified debates without any nuance, where both claims are preposterous (g= intelligence vs g is a social construct signifying nothing), we’re listening to people who have no real information or understanding on the topic.
Example -- I just read a tweet by Eric Topol linking to an article showing that a lot of kids who’ve had covid have ongoing long-term immune responses happening in their adenoids and tonsils. No one knows what that could mean yet right? It could be good because the ongoing immune preparedness could help them fight more infections (or make them mild) or the ongoing immune preparedness could be contributing to risks for MIS-C or long covid or other negative things in kids. No one knows.
And the number of people who responded to make simple proclamations (“so kids don’t need the jab then”) or to demand a simple explanation of what it means is quite staggering. People crave certainty and simplicity.
The best subject matter experts are never the people having these battles.
Off topic but one of my favorite Lex Fridman episodes is the one where he’s talking to Richard Haier (intelligence expert) and there’s quite a lot of discussion of g.
This was such a fun and informative essay, even though it is embarrassing to discover that my car (a Honda Civic) is about as un-fancy as it gets.
Your purple-ball example is a really useful way to think about so many hot-button issues. I immediately thought of Covid and abortion rights, two areas where sides take an absolutist position in an effort to be as protective as possible. Most people are more in the middle (for example, I am as pro-choice as they come, but even I would agree to restrictions on abortion after 15 weeks, if that meant that women had better access in the first trimester). So purple-balling encourages polarization and discourages working together to solve problems.
It's a definite problem that I've noticed. For some reason people think they're more convincing if they reject all exceptions or caveats, but I find those arguments less convincing
Yes! And it doesn’t fool anyone anyway!
Brilliant! A joy to catch-up on your writing today. The first part absolutely cracked me up and the second part is just a very direct, quality observation on motives: "These atheists never spent much time mulling over the consequences of Zoroastrianism flourishing in Iran 2600 years ago. Rather, the new atheists cared about specific certain theocratic overreaches in the present day."
I think, too, in the land of oversimplified debates without any nuance, where both claims are preposterous (g= intelligence vs g is a social construct signifying nothing), we’re listening to people who have no real information or understanding on the topic.
Example -- I just read a tweet by Eric Topol linking to an article showing that a lot of kids who’ve had covid have ongoing long-term immune responses happening in their adenoids and tonsils. No one knows what that could mean yet right? It could be good because the ongoing immune preparedness could help them fight more infections (or make them mild) or the ongoing immune preparedness could be contributing to risks for MIS-C or long covid or other negative things in kids. No one knows.
And the number of people who responded to make simple proclamations (“so kids don’t need the jab then”) or to demand a simple explanation of what it means is quite staggering. People crave certainty and simplicity.
The best subject matter experts are never the people having these battles.
Off topic but one of my favorite Lex Fridman episodes is the one where he’s talking to Richard Haier (intelligence expert) and there’s quite a lot of discussion of g.
https://youtu.be/hppbxV9C63g