hntrader (u/hntrader)

hntrader commented on The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019) cantorsparadise.com/the-u... · Posted by u/jdkee

stephc_int13 · 5 years ago

Heritability of traits is not always directly genetic.

hntrader · 5 years ago

Correct.

I was asking what the basis is for your confidence that it positively isn't substantially genetic.

We know that intelligence is highly heritable, which leaves a few possible explanations, genetics being one of them (along with prenatal nutrition, prenatal lead exposure, etc).

If you're going to claim that genetics is only a small part of the reason that it's heritable, then that has its own burden of proof that needs to be met.

hntrader commented on The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019) cantorsparadise.com/the-u... · Posted by u/jdkee

stephc_int13 · 5 years ago

From a genetic standpoint, all humans are 99.9% identical beasts.

There is of course some genetic components in potential abilities.

But I strongly believe that most of the differences we are seeing are built on compounded interest of environmental factors, starting from a very young age.

hntrader · 5 years ago

You strongly believe this based on what?

Being "99.9 percent identical" doesn't necessarily preclude substantial genetic variation in intelligence just like it doesn't preclude such variation in height or skin tone.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

hntrader commented on MIT suspending SAT/ACT requirement for next application cycle mitadmissions.org/blogs/e... · Posted by u/jchernan

alexgartrell · 5 years ago

The fundamental issue is that crushing the SAT/ACT is more of a reflection of “mom and dad got me good tutoring or prep” than it is intellectual merit.

I “weaseled” my way into CMU via athletic admissions (I was an actual athlete, not a Lori Laughlin style one), but did very well at CMU once I got there. People who aced the SATs did not do as well. Fwiw I still did okay, 32 ACT score, but there were 35/36’s around.

IOW, prediction of academic success is hard; career success harder. These standardized tests don’t add much.

hntrader · 5 years ago

  "These standardized tests don’t add much."

Do you have any evidence for this aside from your immediate experience?

hntrader commented on Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent itep.org/pandemic-profits... · Posted by u/lurtbancaster

asdff · 5 years ago

What about a third lemonade stand that took their huge sack of cash and instead paid their employees six figures? This would be the stand that is worth less to the shareholder, as that money in the sack has left the lemonade stand entirely and is now being spent by the employee elsewhere in the economy with a portion of it used for different taxes. This is also the stand that is worth the most to the public, as this sack of cash is no longer kept under a lemonade stand and is instead being used to pay sales taxes, property taxes, and income taxes. The fallacy is that many believe corporations are like this third stand, when really they are much more like the first or the second, where it is better for the shareholder and worse for the public to keep as high of a portion of money out of taxable pockets as possible and to pay as little as possible for labor.

hntrader · 5 years ago

But that's marked to market value.

The shareholder still has to receive a dividend or sell that higher priced stock, which are both taxable events.

So I still don't get it.

hntrader commented on Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent itep.org/pandemic-profits... · Posted by u/lurtbancaster

SavantIdiot · 5 years ago

> What would be the incentive for this?

Greed, son, greed. That is why 5 people in the US have more money than the bottom 100 million. They didn't work hard to become that rich, they stole it by not paying wages, health care, benefits, or sharing the wealth. Because they do not have to, nothing prevents them from keeping it and paying low wages in an economy where the ONLY jobs are working for them. (Look at the most recent jobs reports, delivery and couriers grew by double digits, most everything else fell: what do you do when there literally are no other jobs except delivering goods to people and peeing in bottles because you don't get a break?)

hntrader · 5 years ago

I don't understand this.

If I'm a greedy shareholder, then I want dividends and cap gains, which are both taxable outside of company tax.

How does hoarding cash inside a company, which is out of my personal reach, help me to satisfy my greed? I can't buy a yacht with it until I get the money out.

hntrader commented on “Why We Sleep” Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors guzey.com/books/why-we-sl... · Posted by u/giansegato

a_throwaway_6 · 5 years ago

"Researcher" isn't synonymous with "academic", but it's not synonymous with "blogger" either.

Part of my point is that an actual researcher, i.e. a professional, would have followed due procedure, contacting the author of the book privately and asking for clarifications, and generally giving the other person an opportunity to examine and respond to criticism.

Academics criticise each other's work constantly but this is acceptable because the purpose is to improve one another's work, not to tarnish each other's reputation and drag their name through the mud.

As things are, it is clear to me the blog post above is meant to kick up an internet storm with accusations of "deliberate data manipulation" and the misleading statements about an "official response" from Berkeley etc. These are the actions of a scandal-monger, not a researcher.

hntrader · 5 years ago

He worked as a research assistant for a professor for three years and is now engaged in amateur research which he shares on his blog, some of which has received positive feedback from some highly credible people.

Also, "researcher" doesn't imply "professional", since amateur researchers exist.

The self-appointed title of "Researcher" is appropriate, in my opinion. There are people in industry who receive that designation ("Real Estate Researcher") that are less deserving.

  "Academics criticise each other's work constantly but this is acceptable because the purpose is to improve one another's work, not to tarnish each other's reputation and drag their name through the mud."

But this is not an example of regular academic work that's being criticized.

This is a book that contains health advice being consumed and actioned upon right now by thousands or millions of laypeople. Guzey is therefore trying to warn regular people who might believe and follow bunk advice and suffer health consequences. He makes this intention clear.

James Randi's service to the public as a skeptic was proportional to the amount of noise he made when he would come across and debunk frauds like Uri Geller. (I'm not saying Walker is a fraud, but the public danger of bunk health wisdom is similar to that posed by conmen like Geller.)

I do still agree with you, however, that it would've been better to discuss the allegations with Walker in private before publishing them. Having read Walker's response now, though, I don't believe it would've made much of a difference. He's still misrepresenting official adequate sleep guidelines, willfully or otherwise, by saying that anyone who gets under 8 hours has "unmet sleep needs", contradicting the NSF.

  "kick up an internet storm with accusations of "deliberate data manipulation""

You're right - the accusation of "deliberate" is definitely a big mistake, and he should remove that since it assumes intent when that hasn't been established.

On the whole, though, aside from sparse mistakes like this (along with the mistake that you noticed of not making it clear that the Berkeley communication was unverified), I feel that the article is rather constrained.

Gelman also noticed this measured tone and explicitly complimented the author on it.

hntrader commented on Against Hickelism noahpinion.substack.com/p... · Posted by u/amrrs

albatruss · 5 years ago

Smith does not address the point, made by Hickle and reiterated by the topmost comment, about taking into account subsistence farming and how that affects how we should be looking at the metric of income per day altogether. Hickle seems to believe that the lower bounds of this number are skewed by these broader concerns. Hence the topmost comment's sentiment, which I share, that they're talking past each other.

hntrader · 5 years ago

What about this?

  "we want to emphasize is that those estimates of poverty do take into account non-market transactions such as subsistence farming."

https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-home-production-and-consu...

hntrader commented on Against Hickelism noahpinion.substack.com/p... · Posted by u/amrrs

ttiurani · 5 years ago

I understand that academics are just humans, and can lose their temper like the rest of us.

However what I find very troubling is that the main point that Hickel raised in the blog post[1] – GDP data has the particular potentially crucial problems Allen has raised when used to assess historical poverty – Roser chooses to not actually address it, but instead throws blanket statements of there being continued discussion between academics of different datasets and their merits.

However this particular graph of historical extreme poverty is used by the most powerful people in the world to advocate for continuing with the status quo. That is why it caught Hickel's attention. It is therefore very important that the heading of the graph is very well justified.

As a layperson reading Allen's research, and knowing there is a discontinuation point in the graph 1981 when the dataset changes, I think the graph ought to be labelled very differently. Roser continuing to label it as "extreme poverty" knowing there is an ongoing debate about what data if any is a good proxy historical poverty, and not answering head on Allen's criticism, really makes me not trust Roser.

1: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2021/3/28/extreme-poverty-i...

hntrader · 5 years ago

Respectfully, I think this misses the point a bit.

Roser himself says that there could very well be valid criticisms that Hickel is correct on and he is incorrect on. The criticism that Hickel recently raised and that you mention here (regarding the validity of pre-1981 data) sounds like it could be one of these.

But productive dialogue between them was largely precluded by perceptions of bad faith and aggressive language ("mansplaining", etc) going back to before Allen's paper.

Now, regarding the specific criticism about pre-1981 data, I found this[1] and this[2] which seems to claim that the older data is adjusted for non-market income. Although, I haven't digged into it properly, so I can't comment on who is correct here.

  "we want to emphasize is that those estimates of poverty do take into account non-market transactions such as subsistence farming.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-home-production-and-consu...

  "Yes, over the last two hundred years, there has been a major shift from people farming for their own consumption towards people working for a wage and purchasing goods in the market. But historians know about history and where non-market sources of income make up a substantial part of total income, it is very obvious that money would represent a rather silly indicator of welfare.

  Just as we need to adjust for price inflation, accounting for non-market sources of income is an essential part of making meaningful welfare comparisons over time. Estimates of poverty and prosperity account for both market and non-market sources of income, including the value of food grown for own consumption or other goods and services that enriched the lives of households without being sold in a market."

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods