You're going too far generalizing from your experience. They can imagine just fine, as their cognition is unimpaired. But humans are learning and planning largely on emotional basis. Their amygdala is less functional, so their imagination is decoupled from negative emotion: when they imagine some bad outcome, they process it in the detached way most people process heat death of the Universe or hunger in Africa, i.e. something that is maybe significant but has little bearing on actual choices. It doesn't generate aversion. What does generate it, though, is deprivation of positive stimulus, so when "bad outcome" means "being put in a small concrete cage with no entertainment and bland food", they'll strategize rationally and do their best to avoid being caught. When it means merely being shunned, reviled, disowned, demoted, physically hurt, it doesn't affect the strategy very much. They don't want being hurt in the present moment, theoretically, but they can't feel enough to factor this into their planning.
It's kind of like how overeating people struggle to curb their craving now with thoughts of seeing their weight increase later. Some succeed, and some can't do it at all. They'll feel negative emotions when they look at the scales, not when they get the ice cream and imagine the numbers. Except psychopaths don't even want to fight this tendency of theirs.
To be fair, positive reinforcement works for them about as well as for others.
I have a similar hypothesis (which I don't believe, but still). Suppose there are no psychopaths. As is well known, people's choices of leaders are heavily influenced by biological biases such as height, social dominance and other "alpha male" traits. If there is no need to suspect malice, communities could suffer a runaway effect of increasingly biological selection of leadership, the same way it seems to happen in most herd/pack animals (where a smaller male basically can never become a leader, even though the correlation of size and intelligence is less than 1). But psychopaths can "supersignal" beyond even the most impressive neurotypicals. With some bad apples, we feel the need to check if signals correspond at all to the substance, and correct for personal behavior and long-term ability to deliver on promises.
You could combine these ideas, though, and have only a few cars that pull weights up/down the hill, with a crane to load it off. I'm not sure but it could probably allow for a far greater total storage and kWh/$.
Now you've got more moving parts though. You have both trains and cranes involved. I think it's probably simpler and cheaper just to have the one big crane than to do a mixed mode system.
I guess the only advantage the train approach has is if you can get a lot more height out of it -- imagine an elevation difference of 1 km from top to bottom, way more than you could get with a crane. This still uses a lot more land though and needs a lot more rail; just having several crane installations might still be simpler and use less land.
Another factor is initial variance. Russian foxes experiment uses some hundreds of animals, perhaps. Suppose we operate on the scale of millions of specimens, a significant portion of the entire species. There could be a many-sigma difference between the average and the smartest living crow in the world (not sure how to estimate this), but the former one would probably struggle to survive in the city while the latter would thrive. Urbanization, then, can be thought of as a bottleneck that promptly eradicates the left part of the extant distribution, changing the population average even in a single generation.
While this is fascinating, I wonder if we could produce the scaffolding itself de novo, and if not, then why? It's not a living thing, just a porous biocompatible structure. At worst, we could grow a lot of skin and process it into scaffolding of arbitrary shape. Or is there some crucial trick, such as remaining chemical signals that guide the development of new cells?
I could see tolerances being an issue there are a lot of fine structures - even if we could shape the protein scaffolds successfully lungs would be far more complex than say a bladder.
> I think if Luddites really did understand technology, they would have realized that they can't stop it by destroying things, and they can't stop it by attempting to ban it either.
Well that's totally unreasonable. Of course you can stop technology by violence and prohibition, it's just that the other party is generally much better at those things by virtue of being richer. Look at how well gatekeeping works in drug production. Look at how tax preparation companies can lobby against the IRS destroying their pointless business. Certainly this may not hold forever, and sure some things slip through. But you can improve your and your children's life by stifling progress where it benefits you.
When one society stops its technological process, it gets pwned by other societies which do not - and then it still needs to catch up to survive, except now all that tech progression is crammed into a much shorter period of time, and disrupts society even more than regular progression. Japan is a textbook example of that.
The "benefit your children" analysis also doesn't account for longer-term beneficial effects of technology, such as cheaper goods.
> Of course you can stop technology by violence and prohibition, the other party is generally much better at those things by virtue of being richer
Okay, how does the other party get richer? It usually isn't because they fight against more efficient technologies.
> Look at how tax preparation companies can lobby against the IRS destroying their pointless business.
Complicated taxes is much more of a political problem than it is a pure efficiency problem that technology can adequately tackle. If a technology that was much better at doing taxes came along, that would be a more comparable situation.
> Certainly this may not hold forever (...) But you can improve your and your children's life by stifling progress where it benefits you.
Yeah sure you can, there are lucky and savvy survivors in every situation. But I think it's more likely that you not only lose, you worsen your and your children's life by having wasted time fighting when you could have been pursuing more effective ways of surviving by adapting to technology.
> Okay, how does the other party get richer? It usually isn't because they fight against more efficient technologies.
By exploiting the poorer party in the previous round of this game. Wealth is pretty much self-perpetuating - the more you have, the easier it is for you to get even more.
No it isn't, it just gives you an advantage. The idea that money makes money implicitly makes the assumption that you're investing in modern technology that drives growth. You won't keep that wealth if you don't invest in technology that enriches your competitors.
There's no technology-in-general that "the Luddites" fight againtst, nor are there Luddites-in-general. It's risk-benefit calculation in every case, with different parties and different interests. You don't need luck to profit off lobbying against the development of your undoers, this is the norm, not the exception.
> Okay, how does the other party get richer? It usually isn't because they fight against more efficient technologies.
What is an "efficient technology" and what is an "unapproved and criminal enterprise" can be decided by lobbying. Luddite is the one who loses, because he gets labeled Luddite by the victor; the loss itself had little to do with vague attitudes towards technological progress. You're just stubbornly missing the point.
> There's no need for it, technology already is good enough.
"Free tax filing" is not a technology, try again.
> the loss itself had little to do with vague attitudes towards technological progress. You're just stubbornly missing the point.
And you didn't even make a point. Lobbying requires power, and efficient technology gives you that power. It's no accident that those who embrace technology always have more power than those who don't.
> There is a widespread belief in contemporary computer dominated societies, that regular people are not allowed any say in the discussions around the types of technologies that radically reshape their lives. And the way that the term Luddite is commonly used functions to reify this belief by making people believe that they cannot push back against technology. Of course, as the above history demonstrated, the irony is that what the Luddites prove is that you actually can push back, you can build up a mass movement around it, and you can in fact be so successful that the government is forced to deploy soldiers and pass harsh legislation in order to squash you.
> Need a more recent example? How about Google Glass. When Google unveiled that wearable high-tech headset it was framed as “inevitable,” those who raised worries were dismissed as “Luddites,” and Google seemed hellbent on pushing forward regardless. Google Glass was going to be the next thing, not because regular people wanted it to be, but because Google insisted that it would be. But a funny thing happened: people said no, and Google’s “world changing” product was shelved. There’s certainly a difference between the public rejecting a piece of consumer technology and workers pushing back against mechanization – but the common thread that connects them is that you do not have to let a tech company screaming “technological progress” in your face turn you into a paragon of passivity. And what’s more you don’t have to accept a false dichotomy wherein saying no to one kind of technology means that you are rejecting all technology.
Google glass was shelved because of consumer resistance?
I was under the impression the project was still under development.
I think there are significantly less parallels between the two examples than that article seems to imply. I think Google Glass is a rather isolated example that is far from the biggest threat to current labor markets.
>Google glass was shelved because of consumer resistance?
This might not be the only reason for shelving Google Glass as a consumer product, but there was indeed a heavy consumer resistance the sort that could absolutely destroy the potential of a technology to become a consumer product : through multiple assaults, public insults and so on on whoever dared to walk in public with those.
"The aforementioned colleague and I were on our way to the 16th Street BART station — I'll note that I wasn't using any device at the time — when a person put their hand on my face and yelled, "Glass!"
In an instant the person was sprinting away, Google Glass in hand.
I ran after, through traffic, to the corner of the opposite block. The person pivoted, shifting their weight to put all of their momentum into an overhand swing. The Google Glass smashed into the ground, and they ran in another direction."
"fellow train passengers seem visibly distressed by what, to them at least, seemed like something that could invade their privacy – a head-mounted camera that could be recording them without their knowledge. A few even asked me to take them off despite my insistence that their fears were unwarranted – constantly recording video and snapping photos would destroy the battery in a matter of minutes."
If the company has to issue social advice on how to not stick out like a sore thumb in a crowd that wants nothing but to rip your glasses and smash them, the product is obviously not going to be successful :
"Google has given some official advice on what to do and perhaps more importantly, what not to do, while wearing the company’s Google Glass smartglasses to avoid being a “glasshole”.
Early adopters of Glass, derogatorily called “glassholes”, have come under fire for using it in socially unacceptable conditions where mobile phones aren’t allowed, for being creepy filming people without their permission and for being rude, staring off into the distance for long periods of time."
"In April, a techie war erupted when East Village restaurant Feast kicked out Glass-user Katy Kasmai after she refused to remove her device. Kasmai vented online, and hundreds of Glass groupies rallied against Feast on Google, accusing the eatery of discriminating “against people who are into new technology.”
Feast co-owner Brian Ghaw is unapologetic. He says Feast’s no-Glass policy is for guests’ peace of mind. “They just felt uncomfortable about having somebody who could potentially videotape them,” explains Ghaw. “If someone were sitting at a table with their smartphone constantly pointing in a certain direction and you didn’t know what they were doing with it, you’d feel pretty uncomfortable as well.”"
Similar events happened to someone who wore home made glasses that are similar to Google Glasses :
"Dr. Steve Mann, human cyborg, says he was assaulted by staff at a Paris McDonald's who ripped off his attached device. McDonald's has denied the claim, and Mann has released a new photo as further evidence."
Do you truly believe that consumer backlash had nothing to do with Google Glasses essentially disappearing from media and refocusing on professional use?
Google Glasses was originally marketed as something you'd wear all day like a smart watch and occupying much of the same functions (check your notifications, email, weather prediction, record voice memos.. the only major difference being the ability to record video and photos), if you can't wear it in public without being constantly bullied into removing them, what's the point?
>I was under the impression the project was still under development.
For what it's worth, children from at-risk families achieve better education when the father ends up incarcerated. So we can absolutely make a case for "ripping families apart" and against supporting "families as they are".
> My findings suggest that on average, parents who are on the margin of incarceration are likely to reduce the amount of schooling their child attains if they instead remain in the household. This can be explained because the removal from the household of a violent parent or a negative role model can create a safer environment for a child (Johnson, 2008; Jaffee et al., 2003). Incarceration is also a mechanism that can limit the intergenerational transmission of violence, substance abuse, and crime to children. This result also relates to findings in other fields that conclude that See Kling (2006), Aizer and Doyle, 2013; Di Tella and Schargrodsky (2013), Mueller-Smith, 2015; and Bhuller et al., 2016, among others. For example, using data from Sweden, Hjalmarsson and Lindquist (2007) report significant father-son correlations in criminal activity that begin to appear between ages 7 and 12, and are 3 the positive effects of being raised by one’s parents depend on the quality of care they can provide (Jaffee et al., 2003).
You summarized the paper as, “children from at-risk families achieve better education when the father ends up incarcerated.”
The one study you’re citing here might suggest your summary statement if “parents on the margin of incarceration” was equivalent to “children from at-risk families”. But those are very different concepts.
You can have an at risk family just by being low-income. Certainly many low-income families are drawn into crime, but by no means all, or even a majority, of low-income families, have a parent who is at the margin of incarceration.
I think the only thing you can reasonably conclude from this study is that leniency in the judicial system towards parents just because they’re parents may be misguided.
They are overlapping. Moreover, "parents on the margin of incarceration" are an extremely significant group of parents for whom the discussion of "supporting families as is" vs. "ripping apart" is meaningful at all. For most poor families it's irrelevant as there's no grounds for dissolution.
I believe you can't deny that it's much more common and publicly acceptable to claim that such a criminal parent should be shown leniency when possible, because having no parent at all is horrible. Yet we have evidence to the contrary.
I concede that this may be inapplicable for some other cases (or at least that we have no proof that it would be applicable yet). However, I personally think that those "at risk families" where parents create an atmosphere that's detrimental for stydying (by being aggressive, anti-intellectual etc.) may well be worse than outright criminal ones, and I believe it'd be proven in due time.
I think leniency for violent crimes or burglary is probably misguided in at risk communities.
For most non-violent crimes, this study was unconvincing (generally speaking I’d like to see incarceration alternatives for non-violent crime, why send people to crime school at tax-payer expense?).
I agree that for these groups, there’s an elevated chance that the parent is actively harming their family. I just don’t think it would be statistically justified to separate families that aren’t criminal.
I am appalled that such an assertion can be made openly. It is, frankly, simply vile to suggest that children be taken away from struggling parents by society, rather than society being obligated to help those parents raise their children. To do so would be not only criminal, but profoundly immoral.
Facts matter. Evidence matters. We should not ignore evidence because it disagrees with our ideology. And we certainly should not attack someone for trying to bring in evidence to a discussion about something as important as raising our children.
The poster you are responding to didn't even suggest a course of action. He mearly provided evidence that the "obvious" course of action might not be so obviously correct. You are free to (as another poster did) question the relevence, interperatation, or quality of the evidence, or provide other evidence or arguments to disagree with what the poster was presenting. But you should not attack someone for trying to have an evidence based discussion.
Even if he turns out to be completely wrong, figuring out how he is wrong will likely be far more enlightening than simply asserting that he is wrong on moral grounds.
> we can absolutely make a case for "ripping families apart"
I don't see how that isn't a suggestion of a course of action -- one that that is a blatant misuse of a study (with small effects only measured over a small time period) toward ideological ends, i.e. supporting the seizure of children of disadvantaged parents.
Moreover, I refuse to have an evidence-based discussion about whether certain people deserve human rights. That shifts the Overton window to present such ideas as acceptable, when in a civilized society they should not be.
I am not going to enter a discussion on the merits of the underlying argument because you have already acknowledged that you have no interest in doing so.
Returning to the meta discussion. Let us trace the course of the conversation in question:
neuland: ...focus on building a better foster / adoption system and encouraging people to use it
house9-2: wouldn't it be better to support the families as they are? help improve peoples lives instead of ripping families apart
textor: For what it's worth, children from at-risk families achieve better education when the father ends up incarcerated. So we can absolutely make a case for "ripping families apart" and against supporting "families as they are".
The only proposal being made here is a voluntary foster/adoption system with encouragement. This is then framed as "ripping families apart". While this framing is arguably unfair, it is within the bounds of reason so, giving it the most charitable interpretation possible, textor responds to "ripping families apart" in the context in which it was introduced and provided evidence that keeping blood families together is not inherently the best course of action. To be clear, at this point the conversation is about how much we should be supporting voluntary adoption; and textor is arguing that the idea is not as inherantly bad as house9-2 seems to be assuming.
Stepping up a level of meta:
>I refuse to have an evidence-based discussion about whether certain people deserve human rights.
This is what political correctness looks like. Literally. You are interested in what is politically correct, evidence be dammed. Further, no one in this discussion has argued for denying people human rights. Even further, every society on the planet accepts that we can violate "human rights" in some sense for the greater good. Eg. prisons deny people their human right of freedom; taxes partially deny the right of personal property.
At risk of entering into the merits of the original discussion, leaving children in poor home environment arguably denies them their human rights, including their right to: education security of person, and food.
How do we balance these conflicting goals? With evidence to inform us what our options are and what effects they will have with regards to our goals.
Going meta again:
> one that that is a blatant misuse of a study ...
It is not a blatant misuse; it is extrapolating beyond the facts of the original study. The first step of evidence based inquiry is to work with the evidence you have. This informs the questions you can ask, so you can look for the evidence you want to have [0]. Once you've done that, you can move onto making the evidence you want to have [1]. Each step of this process provides a foundation to build the next step.
And yes, the process is not as simple as I lay out. You need theory crafting. And once your theory starts to develop holes, it may be time to revisit an earlier step until you have enough of a foundation to make the later steps worthwhile (either because your foundation is strong, is the lower tiers are short of relevant evidence)
> ... toward ideological ends,
Please take a moment to rethink who is arguing towards ideological ends. In my experience, it is generally the person arguing against the concept of evidence; not the one trying to ground themselves in evidence.
>That shifts the Overton window to present such ideas as acceptable
And what about the overton window you are moving towards. Where it is accatable to blatantly argue that evidence should be ignored. Where the very concept of introducing evidence is morally abhorant. Is that the window you want us to live in?
>when in a civilized society they should not be.
Are you arguing that the very concept of seperating children from their parents has no place in civilized society? Child Protective Services might disagree with you. They do place strong emphasis on keeping families together where possible; but they acknowledge that sometimes conditions are so bad that it is unacceptable to leave a child in that situation. Where is the line that determines what warrents CPS to remove children from their families? Again, evidence is the best approach to find it, unless you want to remove children unnecessarily while leaving others in bad situations that they would be far better off out of.
Going meta again:
The discussion is not simply two extremes. Even if we agreed that one (or both) extremes was morally untenable, by seriously exploring the benifits of it, we can look for ways to obtain those same benifits by other means: such as turning school into a 'second home', as this the content of the original article, or voluntary foster care with active involvment of the birth parents in a non-primary-guardian capacity.
[0] And by want to have, I mean the evidence that answers the questions you want to ask; not the evidence that supports the conclusion you want to reach
[1] Again, in the sense of the evidence that answers the questions you want answered.
While I appreciate your even-handed and careful defense of the point I was making, it's probably necessary to note that I didn't consider the merits of adoption at all. I have no idea what sort of policy to support on this issue. Indeed, the only thing I was objecting to was the idea of the company of biological parents being preferable by default. Given the evidence, I think that options rank like this: good parents > good foster parents > single parent > no parents > violent antisocial parent(s). Maybe it's wrong, but I don't immediately see how and believe we shouldn't assume that any position pro "ripping families apart", whatever the circumstances, is indefensible. If anything, the only policy I can responsibly advocate for, and not just voice general agreement with, is more rigorous and unbiased research into life outcomes.
It's kind of like how overeating people struggle to curb their craving now with thoughts of seeing their weight increase later. Some succeed, and some can't do it at all. They'll feel negative emotions when they look at the scales, not when they get the ice cream and imagine the numbers. Except psychopaths don't even want to fight this tendency of theirs.
To be fair, positive reinforcement works for them about as well as for others.