Readit News logoReadit News
nemo44x commented on Giving people money helped less than I thought it would   theargumentmag.com/p/givi... · Posted by u/tekla
tptacek · 6 days ago
There is a correlation between the IQ metric (whatever it represents) and income, but it's not as simple as Internet message boards want it to be: IQ reliability falls off as the scores get higher (which makes sense: IQ isn't intended as a ranking of human intelligence, but rather as a diagnostic measure for people with cognitive impairments) and income falls off as IQ scores get higher as well. Everything is complicated, as you'd expect.
nemo44x · 6 days ago
First - sample sizes get smaller and smaller as you approach the edges. Law of low numbers begins to materialize.

Secondly - there’s no point in optimizing around the edge cases. As a whole it’s pretty reliable.

Everything is complicated isn’t a good reason to not take more effective action than what’s done today which is destructive and cruel. Letting stupid people, who are stupid by no fault of their own, fend for themselves and calling that liberty is why we have such poor outcomes for these people.

nemo44x commented on Giving people money helped less than I thought it would   theargumentmag.com/p/givi... · Posted by u/tekla
billfor · 8 days ago
If your point is that giving a truly stupid person money won’t solve their problem, that’s probably correct. But not all poor people are stupid. It would be interesting to quantify “stupid” further, in support of your opinion.
nemo44x · 7 days ago
Yes, on average IQ correlates with socio-economic status. Poor people are generally not as smart as not-poor people. That doesn't mean all poor people are unintelligent, just that most are.

And my bigger point is you (a not stupid person I assume) can't give a stupid person a bag of money and expect them to make good choices with it. You're projecting your abilities, qualities, and values on them and their's are totally different. Because you don't actually have empathy for poor, stupid people but rather want to feel virtues even though you aren't helping and in fact are probably hurting them. I don't mean "you" to actually mean you, but the people that create and support these types of programs.

Instead it's better to recognize that intelligence is largely fixed to a degree and that people on the bad end of the distribution often need a paternal society to take care of them. To house, clothe, and feed them and give them meaningful work and keep them free of harmful vice. That governments job is to support this type of relationship and regulate it and set standards. Instead we let these types of people end up in prison, take to life on the streets, and/or die young and we call it freedom. All enforced by government violence - the same government that enables and actively encourages it through its actions.

At least in our modern, advanced civilization where income and outcomes are nearly 100% correlated with ability and that having below average intelligence is very much a handicap. And one where throwing money at the problem doesn't actually help at all and is actually harmful.

Dead Comment

nemo44x commented on Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations   cpb.org/pressroom/Corpora... · Posted by u/coloneltcb
another_twist · a month ago
Thats expected. In functioning democracies state media is run for the purpose not profit. It doesnt have the corrupting influence of political money. PBS in the US could be so much better. Just look at what BBC is able to do in the UK.
nemo44x · a month ago
State media doesn’t have corrupting influence of POLITICAL money? It’s inheriting my political! Government media is the worse possible thing.
nemo44x commented on Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations   cpb.org/pressroom/Corpora... · Posted by u/coloneltcb
legitster · a month ago
Contrary to the conservative spin over the years, I have found public broadcasting to be one of the least biased sources of headline news and information available. (For their national broadcasts at least - local ... can be hit or miss).

In particular, their kids programming is the absolute best. Nothing flashy or exciting, but it's laser focused on education and has zero agenda. And the PBS kids apps are one of the few things I can hand to my kid worry-free. And the fact that it's money-free and ad-free to access in this modern age is a miracle.

The only people who could support this are not just wrong, they are people out of touch with reality. These are people who think public parks are a waste of space. Or that having nice things to share is elitist.

nemo44x · a month ago
> Nothing flashy or exciting, but it's laser focused on education and has zero agenda.

That’s not true. It just matches your agenda which you feel is no agenda. Of course you are against getting rid of instruments of persuasion that agree with your world view.

In the end it’s better for you too. Government shouldn’t support media.

nemo44x commented on Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations   cpb.org/pressroom/Corpora... · Posted by u/coloneltcb
nemo44x · a month ago
Good it’s a completely outdated concept. There’s no barrier to producing and distributing content today. That public tax dollars go to a place where partisans distribute it to their favorite projects is a 1960s era concept that needs to die.

Really the 1960s and 70s were such an insane era we should examine all government programs from that era that are still in commission with very suspicious eyes.

nemo44x commented on What went wrong for Yahoo   dfarq.homeip.net/what-wen... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico
thunderbong · a month ago
> In 1998, Yahoo turned down the opportunity to acquire Google for $1 million. Yahoo made six acquisitions that year, spending $107.3 million.

> In 2002, Google offered to sell again for $1 billion. Yahoo hesitated and Google raised its price to $3 billion. Yahoo declined at the higher price. Google went on to become a trillion dollar company.

> Yahoo attempted to acquire Facebook for $1 billion in 2006, but Mark Zuckerberg turned down the offer. Had Yahoo increased its offer by just $100 million, Facebook’s board would have forced Zuckerberg to take it. Facebook also became a trillion dollar company.

In inclined to believe that neither would have become trillion dollar companies if they had been acquired by Yahoo.

nemo44x · a month ago
And yahoo! leadership agreed. They probably intended to just bury the tech and keep some staff which is why they didn’t pay the asking price. Had they thought either of these properties were transformational they’d have paid.
nemo44x commented on Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row in Europe   abcnews.go.com/Business/w... · Posted by u/doener
rsynnott · 2 months ago
I realise it is most improper to read the article on this here orange website, but:

> Overall, battery electric vehicle sales rose 25% in Europe compared to a year earlier

Come on, now.

nemo44x · 2 months ago
Absolutely no context behind that. It’s meaningless in isolation.
nemo44x commented on Tesla sales drop for fifth month in a row in Europe   abcnews.go.com/Business/w... · Posted by u/doener
dumbledoren · 2 months ago
Europe is economically strained right now. Inflation has hit hard, with housing costs skyrocketing even in less expensive countries, and people are being gentrified out of their own cities. Its no time to be buying expensive vanity cars. People cant even buy normal cars right now.
nemo44x · 2 months ago
It’s odd to read the comments here, somehow getting into a long thread about nazi camps when the buried lede is that Europe is under tremendous financial stress and it’s not getting better. Losing ground for 20 years to USA and ascendant Asia where Tesla sells a ton of cars is a concern. Talk about boiled frogs.
nemo44x commented on Microplastics shed by food packaging are contaminating our food, study finds   cnn.com/2025/06/24/health... · Posted by u/gortok
barbazoo · 2 months ago
Almost 10% of the population don’t have enough food even though we produce more than enough for everyone.

https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/the-hunger-crisis/world-...

It’s not even that we’re destroying the planet and our health so that everyone has enough.

nemo44x · 2 months ago
They aren’t starving by and large which was my main claim. Just compare today to 30 years ago to 60 to 120. Massive improvements in all relevant metrics. We’re doing the right things is the only way to interpret the data. Doesn’t mean perfect but certainly fertilizers and plastics and petro-chemicals have been a massive net positive.

u/nemo44x

KarmaCake day5598July 8, 2014View Original