2025-01-09
idk
Snowden Todd on the decline in status of Harvard, possibly a little overstated. But this is the reason I’ve never really cared that much about affirmative action, because if the universities’ arguments about diversity are correct then it’s good, and if they aren’t then it won’t be a place you want to have gone to anyways.
Josh Zlatkus on whether therapy even does anything. It occurs to me that the divide between left and right wing attitudes could in some way be a confirmation of Robin Hanson’s idea that medicine is performative to show that you care. There’s possibly a link between how big the gap in take-up is, and how likely the treatment is to actually do anything for you (vaccines could be a counterexample, on the other hand they generally don’t directly benefit you, but rather the entire population).
Possibly prompted by me messaging him about cosmological natural selection (or more likely many people messing him about anthropics in general), Bentham’s Bulldog has another such article out.
Chinese Cooking Demystified on mapo tofu.
Brian Klass on optimization (via the Browser). It’s interesting because it’s an article which argues against optimization with arguments like that it decreases robustness or enjoyment, which uncharitably means it’s actually about Goodharting. There’s actually two different questions, the first is whether there is such a thing as the true optimum, the other is the best way to approximate it.
Pretty little piece by Platonic Husband on whether men have emotions even.
Naomi Kanakia on the purpose of plot. I think there’s a lot of merit to the idea that novels are a good way to bypass people’s natural defenses and incept ideas directly into their consciousness. Insofar as a book has nice writing it generates a connection to the reader, but without a plot it’s sort of letting that feeling go to waste. I think a lot of highbrow readers are into this because they see it as the highest form of pure aesthetic appreciation, but it makes me feel like the author doesn’t actually have core beliefs, or is just too scared to express them.
Cartoons Hate Her on trad singles. It actually seems pretty weird to me that whenever I read an article or listen to a podcast, depending on the gender of the host, they will always say that there just aren’t any good guys/girls out there. If you take them at their face, it’s not standards, since they also say they just want a normal guy/nice girl.
