kaiwenwang (u/kaiwenwang)

kaiwenwang commented on University of Cambridge Cognitive Ability Test planning.e-psychometrics.... · Posted by u/indigodaddy

kaiwenwang · 7 hours ago

Pretty sure cognition is biological. I am of the opinion though various programs and college admissions accelerate a large portion of capable and able people to the top, they are not likely the best out of the entire population. I have frequently met (mostly young males) working in restaurants or supermarkets who would do exceedingly well if they had the right circumstances. Though personality (in terms of choosing to fight for an education) is important too: of those I offered to sit down and chat with (because their media landscape is mostly bad social media/conspiracies), none have taken me up on the offer. Whether due to their personality or my approach I do not know.

https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/intelligence.shtml

https://kaiwenwang.com/writing/hypothetical-foldy-ears-as-an...

kaiwenwang commented on China is eating the world apropos.substack.com/p/ch... · Posted by u/sg5421

yubblegum · 2 days ago

> A new authoritarian power revitalized the economy

Fantasy history there. No, the actual timeline: USA determined that USSR-CPC split and animosity were real and should be exploited. China, a social and economic basketcase, also saw the benefit of pivoting to the West.

Then (fortuitously for the Chinese ..) Mao died and Deng Xiaping came to power and then to the US and wore a cowboy hat! Western Capitalists* , whether due to their cupidity (or stupidity), convinced themselves that massive investment, funds, and technology transfer to Communist China would somehow engender a "liberal China" in a generation.

Even after CPC crushed the "liberal" front in its cadre in 1989, which should have been a wakeup call to the idiot class that rules the West, we had 8 years of Slick Willy letting China get their hands on all sorts of tech and secret in US and the West.

And now, the Orange Clown is finishing "the job" by laying waste to US aliances and institutions, making sure 21st is irrevocably the Chinese Century.

So that, hn, is how China actually got to "eat the world".

https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/1kp4mxw/deng_x...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...

*: No that ain't you and that certainty ain't me and it's not even the fabled "10%". Try the 0.1%.

kaiwenwang · 2 days ago

You know, the whole git 'master' branch stuff has many in the USA exhausted about arguing over words and their meaning.

A good shortcut is to just invent and use new words. USSR-PRC is probably better than arguing over CPC or CCP, which itself probably comes from the Russian CCCP as the Alaska Trump-Putin meeting made me notice.

As per Google: CCCP is the Cyrillic form of the Russian acronym СССР, which stands for Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik).

Other things that may be beneficial to do: not anthropomorphizing countries and using the neuter "it", saying "X government" like USG instead of "Washington DC." Using stand-ins like Washington DC for US Government another word is called metonymy.

kaiwenwang commented on Basic Social Skills Guide improveyoursocialskills.c... · Posted by u/sogen

kaiwenwang · 20 days ago

Being able to communicate despite differences in status.

Don't try to qualify people.

Do not let others feel contempt.

Don't speak any words outside what someone would commonly be able to accept.

Suppression of ego so others are not uncomfortable. Knowing when to not suppress it if others think you are fake.

kaiwenwang commented on Young graduates are facing an employment crisis wsj.com/economy/jobs/jobs... · Posted by u/bdev12345

kaiwenwang · a month ago

I'm trying to work out the theory behind this, but the rough metric is that it's due to increased transportation, automation, and consolidation. As businesses expand they leave less opportunity for those local to do something meaningful while those who run the companies are rich beyond measure. Students cram into college for the hopes of being on the other side, not the "below the API" side.

Measurement then becomes graded upon standard features as differentiation becomes harder: GPA, test scores, essay rubrics, etc. Combined with increased communication, online portals become spammed within minutes.

All this leads to quite a difficult time for the young. Inequality likely ends up being a function of the country size. It explains the USA, PRC, India, but not sure about places like Pakistan, Brazil, or Indonesia.

Still draft, but wrote a bit here about the roles in society: https://bedouin-attitude-green-fire-6608.fly.dev/writing/a-d...

kaiwenwang commented on Flounder Mode – Kevin Kelly on a different way to do great work joincolossus.com/article/... · Posted by u/latentnumber

danparsonson · 2 months ago

"Most of the United States"? You're covering an awfully big area there - how much of it have you actually seen for yourself vs learned about second hand through news and social media?

As for the skills bar, if you're intent on being hired by the likes of OpenAI then sure, you'll need to aim high, but for the majority of jobs, being reasonably good, friendly, and reliable will definitely be sufficient; the challenge is then mainly about seeming slightly more appealing than the other candidates for a position.

kaiwenwang · 2 months ago

As an adult I lived in Georgia, South Carolina, Ohio for internships and visited the major cities: Seattle, SF, Chicago, NYC, Boston, DC, Dallas, Philly.

Most of the United States is suburbanized, and if you want to rent an apartment near the city it tends to be that gray laminate style I've described for $1500/mo with roommates.

Most of the people who managed to have a family in a major city area are doing well for themselves, prior to asset and rent inflation because they have accessible goods and knowledge to them.

I didn't even know what IKEA was until age 18.

Because the national system of laws and transportation forms a certain culture, Costco regardless of the location is the same. The STOP signs in the United States are all the same. The processing of foods all follow certain guidelines. There are certain stores existing up to the limits of the locale, and only certain producers because society has centralized so heavily. So I think my claim of generality is reasonable.

kaiwenwang commented on Flounder Mode – Kevin Kelly on a different way to do great work joincolossus.com/article/... · Posted by u/latentnumber

hiAndrewQuinn · 2 months ago

>employers want the best candidates but not the average candidates,

This is just flatly false. Employers want candidates at all ability levels given a competitive price.

You can be pretty bad at your job and still have a steady stream of work if you're cheap, for example. The Hacker News crowd loves to poop on these guys because we are almost by definition a quasi-professional platform, but we are far from the median take on this.

>Might also depend on your locale. Plumber in Germany might be better than SWE in Texas.

If you truly believe this, and think the difference is substantial, make a 5 year plan and move to Germany. Talk is cheap.

kaiwenwang · 2 months ago

Added you on LinkedIn if you'd like to chat about your experiences moving to Finland. Yes, I might've been too non-specific with my wording. My communication style tends to link disparate topics together, which seems too hyperbole when people read into the words themselves.

kaiwenwang commented on Flounder Mode – Kevin Kelly on a different way to do great work joincolossus.com/article/... · Posted by u/latentnumber

alexslobodnik · 2 months ago

The binary perspective gives an excuse to give up.

The reasonable perspective does not. It demonstrates that though agency is limited it does exist.

Our life outcomes are connected to our actions. For many their circumstances make this an unpleasant thought, thus binary thinking protect their self-image. For some that's all they have left.

kaiwenwang · 2 months ago

Feel like binary perspective is a motivation to not fall into hell. If I lived in certain places in Western Europe or my family was in a developed part of the United States I would be fine being a tradesman or simple office job.

kaiwenwang commented on Flounder Mode – Kevin Kelly on a different way to do great work joincolossus.com/article/... · Posted by u/latentnumber

Aurornis · 2 months ago

> As a young person in the United States, the main concern is that if you aren't one of the greatest at what you do, you'll be doomed to a life of increasing poverty

In psychology there’s a concept called splitting, or dichotomous thinking, where a person only thinks of things in concepts of their extremes. Either the most extreme good outcome, or the most extreme bad outcome. They might see people or public figures as either amazing or evil. The Wikipedia page has a primer on it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology) But you don’t need a Wikipedia article or psychology concepts to realize that there are more outcomes than extreme success or increasing poverty.

I’m fascinated by how these concepts that were once relegated to psychology and therapy have started to become commonplace among young people on the internet. They’re not seen as failure modes in thinking, but rather an obvious conclusion from whatever they’ve been consuming so much of online.

The comment above is a prime example. Even the obsession over “food derived from vegetable oils and chemically bleached wheat” is a confusing conclusion for me, someone who has had no problem avoiding wheat products and eating healthy on a budget with even minimal effort. The food topic is particularly strange because it’s not that hard to learn basic cooking skills, buy cheap vegetable, and cook quick and easy meals. Yet I continue talking to young people who simultaneously fret about food quality while filling their diets with nothing but processed and fast foods, many of which are more expensive than cooking basic fast meals.

I don’t know what else to say, other than the above style of thinking is, in my experience, indicative of what happens when someone collects too much perspective from the internet and not enough from the real world. Given the context of this comment section, I can only recommend trying to reevaluate, disconnect from the internet a little more, and make an effort to reconnect with the real world

kaiwenwang · 2 months ago

Sorry in advance if this seems rude. Going to context dump a lot of stuff below:

My opinion is based on the real world as I've lived it. I cook for myself. I highly recommend https://www.centurylife.org/ for anyone else learning to cook.

Have also deeply thought about types of cookware: from glass to ceramic to clay, have experimented with clay pots such as RÖMERTOPF (not worth it), dutch oven is fine to pressure cookers, or German cookware such as Fissler that has spot welded and presents a neat design compared to riveted cookware common in the US.

If you go to almost any supermarket (Costco, Publix, Kroger, Whole Foods, HMart), the majority of foods people eat are derivatives of what I said.

Whereas recipes in the past were limited by the locale, we are now limited to the cities we have transportation options to.

If you're in a suburb of one of the major metropolitan areas, this doesn't apply. In small cities of the United States, people might only have Walmart, Amazon, Dollar Generals. So people have to cram into cities as the availability of goods is limited.

There are only a few suppliers for things---there is not unlimited choice from free market competition, a wall of supermarket cereals look different but the ingredients are fundamentally the same. I can't get good cuts of meat such as bone-in shoulder easily. Nor can I get it cut at a butcher because USDA guideline has limits on outside meat.

Food is only 3 categories: fats, carbs, or proteins.

Let's consider proteins: The major meat I buy from Costco is the Australian grass-fed lamb import. The Sprouts has lamb, but it's been sitting on the shelf for a long time. The factory farmed pork, chicken, fish, and feedlot beef give me symptoms of malaise.

Almost all processed foods are using canola oil, vegetable oil, sunflower oil, etc.--the polyunsaturated fats are shown to highly depress metabolism, despite what the USDA guidelines say.

For carbs, most of the wheat is chemically bleached with "Oxides of nitrogen, Chlorine, Nitrosyl chloride, Chlorine dioxide."

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B...

The wheat and the corn give me symptoms because I am fairly aware of my body's reactions. Some person might be extremely unhealthy and live in a slum (from my perspective) and say that they're fine, and we would both we right because each perspective is relative to an individual.

Many are increasingly unable to afford to even transport oneself in the United States without a car or gasoline because of the suburbanization of infrastructure yet cities are increasing in price.

The internet affects the real world because federal laws, which be written in places far away from where you live, affects people's behaviors and how they can do things.

You categorize me as a surface-level thinker prone to the emotional dramatics derived from the internet not having deeply thought about the reality and nature of things, but I would hope that the above comment dispels such preassumptions.

Seemingly widening inequality and inability to land meaningful jobs as a lived experience for people I know makes my concerns reasonable and truthful based on lived experience (young 20s).

kaiwenwang commented on Flounder Mode – Kevin Kelly on a different way to do great work joincolossus.com/article/... · Posted by u/latentnumber

chr15m · 2 months ago

Hiring is not a zero sum game (growth of the company/economy through good hiring means more positions are created). I've hired software developers before and what I was looking for was somebody who commits code that works and is good quality. I don't care about their ranking on some imaginary programmer hierarchy. You probably don't want to work at a company where they do.

kaiwenwang · 2 months ago

No, not a fan of Leetcode either, nor imaginary measures of social prestige.

We may not necessarily disagree with any of each other's points, but lack of mutual context and having different lived experience makes our words have different meaning.