RNG's recent activity

  1. Comment on What's something that you missed out on? in ~talk

    RNG
    Link Parent
    It's funny you mentioned this, I feel like some of the people I admired and envied the most in high school still live in my home town doing the same things they were doing back then. Not to knock...

    It's funny you mentioned this, I feel like some of the people I admired and envied the most in high school still live in my home town doing the same things they were doing back then.

    Not to knock the humble way of living life, but time does give me some perspective on what really matters.

    1 vote

  2. Comment on What's something that you missed out on? in ~talk

    RNG
    Link Parent
    Thank you kindly for your warm wishes. I got therapy far later than I should, but it helped a ton despite my skepticism about it. I eventually found my footing and life is going well now.

    Thank you kindly for your warm wishes. I got therapy far later than I should, but it helped a ton despite my skepticism about it. I eventually found my footing and life is going well now.

    3 votes

  3. Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society

    RNG
    Link Parent
    So it sounds like you have beliefs that work like this: "If X is used as a pretext for bad people to do something bad, then X solely exists for bad people to justify their bad behavior." I feel...

    So it sounds like you have beliefs that work like this:

    "If X is used as a pretext for bad people to do something bad, then X solely exists for bad people to justify their bad behavior."

    I feel that this kind of inference is neither sound nor cogent. It neither entails nor even raises the probably of the conclusion.

    9 votes

  4. Comment on What's something that you missed out on? in ~talk

    RNG
    Link Parent
    I've had primarily atypical romantic relationships (poly/open etc.) and I have no idea what connection, if any, there is to my earlier years, but I do think it felt like it sucked when I was far...

    I've had primarily atypical romantic relationships (poly/open etc.) and I have no idea what connection, if any, there is to my earlier years, but I do think it felt like it sucked when I was far less sexually and romantically knowledgeable/mature in my early 20s than my peers.

    I feel like my change in view of relationships was partly due to having a major break with my parents' ideology more generally. They were very conservative and very wedded to a particular sect that believed everyone but members of the sect were doomed. When I left, I feel like I questioned absolutely everything from God to monogamy to capitalism to the state, to gender and dove into the punk scene. I completely unanchored myself from everything I had known and jumped in the deep end.

    Over a decade later I'm now comfortably a liberal with a stable life, a positive disposition, and primarily atypical romantic structures (poly/open), but it's difficult to attribute that last attribute to anything in particular. I pay taxes, do my job, donate to charity, and volunteer in my community, pretty basic, well-adjusted stuff, so who knows.

    6 votes

  5. Comment on What's something that you missed out on? in ~talk

    RNG
    Link
    I missed out on a normal teenage life. I was raised in a very conservative home where prior to graduating I couldn't stay out late, go to parties, have romantic partners, etc. I didn't know the...

    I missed out on a normal teenage life.

    I was raised in a very conservative home where prior to graduating I couldn't stay out late, go to parties, have romantic partners, etc. I didn't know the movies people referenced or the music people listened to. I also internalized these restrictions; I didn't go out and have a normal social life in my teens. I feel like I missed out on so many experiences that define one's teenage years.

    I'm not religious now, and I'm not sure if there's even a God out there. I sort of made the mistakes and learned the lessons in my early 20s that most learned in high school.

    Was it bad? Good? I have no idea. It's hard to for me to wish my formative years were drastically different when I'm happy with the person I am today. I do feel some FOMO; I'm a little bummed I missed out, but it doesn't bother me greatly.

    25 votes

  6. Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society

    RNG
    Link Parent
    So I'm confused on how this inference works. We have this fact (that I agree with) that: How does that give us a reason to think that EA solely exists to help rich people justify being rich in a...

    So I'm confused on how this inference works. We have this fact (that I agree with) that:

    Sam Bankman-Fried and the network around him tried to convince us he is a genius.

    How does that give us a reason to think that EA solely exists to help rich people justify being rich in a world with extreme income inequality and poverty? How does this inference work, what kind of inference is this? How do we move from understanding a fact we are in agreement about to your conclusion which I deny?

    7 votes

  7. Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society

    RNG
    Link Parent
    That's sufficient to identify as a vegan in my book. I don't think it's always practicable to tell if the sugar in some treat was made with bone char, but it's easy not to buy chicken nuggies or...

    If you put a gun to my head, yep! I don't like to associate in groups, but since you're asking me a direct question, I lean further into that one that out of it.

    That's sufficient to identify as a vegan in my book. I don't think it's always practicable to tell if the sugar in some treat was made with bone char, but it's easy not to buy chicken nuggies or buy cows' milk. By the way, this wasn't intended to be a purity test or anything, it's just my opinion that most who defend animal rights online hear the same arguments over and over again (crop deaths, too expensive, it doesn't make a difference, plants feel pain, it's racist/colonialist, food deserts, it tastes good, etc.) I'd just be surprised if anyone who has spoken up for animal rights hadn't heard it, but maybe you haven't made a concerted effort to argue with folks online.

    I sincerely thank you for taking steps to reduce your contributions to animal agriculture. People who are making a concerted effort to reduce animal consumption are making a significant impact on both reducing demand for animal products and normalizing animal-free diets.

    (it's effectively impossible in my area to get cost effective, prepared, vegan meals, so it's oatmeal for every meal otherwise)

    I know this isn't the point of the discussion, but I am more than willing to send you some of my favorite meal prep recipes! They are super cheap, and can cook a lot of food at a time (like a weeks worth of lunches.) I recommend an InstantPot for convenience or just a rice cooker otherwise, as there's tons of options that open up for low-cost meal prep. One of my favorites is this fried rice recipe:

    • 1 cup rinsed white rice
    • 1.25 cup mixed veggies (usually come in 1.25 cup-sized bags for less than a buck)
    • .5 cup shelled edamame
    • 1.5 cups of water
    • (optionally add some garlic or other spices)

    Store in fridge. I like frying up leftovers in a pan with soy sauce and sesame oil if I have time! Optionally add some tofu or other vegan protein alternative (I like Just Egg), but that's optional.

    apparently doesn't expend effort dismantling the institutions which gave them inequal power and influence to start with

    Not everyone who donates to charity is a billionaire. Peter Singer and Will MacAskill are not billionaires. SBF was, and he was obviously a bad look for the movement, but I don't think there's anything wrong with charitable giving or prioritizing effective, high-impact charities. If you live in a western country and benefit from that, one might think you have an obligation to do something more valuable with your wealth than horde it, and none of that entails anything about what you think or support regarding the rough distribution of wealth in a society.

    1 vote

  8. Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society

    RNG
    Link Parent
    The lack of the word "all" prior to using the term? There are obviously vegan and EA leftists that Matthew Adelstein (the author) is aware of, is friends with, and has co-written with. Maybe I'm...

    Could you quote a part of the article which indicates that it's aimed at only "leftists who provide awful critiques of veganism and effective altruism"? From my read, the author very clearly delineates between "leftists" and "Effective Altruists", and never states that there's an overlap. Maybe their other works are more precise in their wording, but I'm unfamiliar with the authorship of Mr. Bulldog?

    The lack of the word "all" prior to using the term? There are obviously vegan and EA leftists that Matthew Adelstein (the author) is aware of, is friends with, and has co-written with. Maybe I'm biased from knowing the author in question, but he never said anywhere that this criticism is exclusively from leftists and constitutes what all leftists say. Obviously the biggest opponents of vegan causes are conservatives, but they are less hypocritical in their responses, as they are mask-off ghouls on all of their positions.

    Eight billion people. Because this is the Internet, I can find you a person who genuinely believes with their whole heart that the Earth is sealed under a clear dome and flies through space as our little blue disc. I'll be more specific: in the thousands of people I run into IRL -- sometimes in spaces populated very heavily by people in vegan/animal rights circles -- I have never met a single soul who pushed the rhetoric that Mr. Bulldog dug up.

    Are you a vegan? Have you ever advocated publicly for the welfare of the animals we brutalize on factory farms? I promise you, this is in the rotation of mindless criticisms aimed at vegans. I've heard this argument constantly, including from a real life leftist friend.

    I ... literally did. That's why we're discussing the first paragraph, which creates a false equivalence between the "leftists against veganism" argument and the "leftists against effective altruism" argument.

    The claim I was looking for some backing for was "Because this [Lefty people all universally have a bad take on veganism] is wrong, all Lefty People takes are also wrong". Maybe I'm dense, but I'm not sure how what you stated substantiated this claim. The charitable reading of your comment is that Adelstein is moving from "anti-vegan leftists are wrong about veganism" to "anti-EA leftists are wrong about EA" which I wouldn't find as objectionable as the original claim.

    you can donate large sums of money to vanity charity projects, the system is broken and you are behaving inherently undemocraticly. Hey, it can be effective, idc

    First, we can care about more than one thing at a time, and if you care about donating to charity at all, it seems good to care about your contributions being effective and high-impact.

    it seems that the truly most effective altruism would be donating towards groups that are attempting to end the systems which make it effective to start with.

    Like a Marxist revolutionary party or something? Are we not allowed to participate in charitable giving unless it is to The Correct Leftist Revolutionary Movement™ (which is, incidentally, incompatible with all other leftist revolutionary projects). I don't think we have a good reason to think there's a project like this that just a little bit of funding away from transforming the lives of the global south, the working class, and factory farmed animals, such that in expectation it does the most good to donate to them.

    3 votes

  9. Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society

    RNG
    Link Parent
    Can you link to where the author talked about a mandated conversion? The point is that the majority of people in wealthy countries do not have to purchase factory farmed animal products. Also, the...

    I took it as food deserts show that vegan diets are currently inaccessible to large portions of the population so what happens to them during this mandated conversion?

    Can you link to where the author talked about a mandated conversion? The point is that the majority of people in wealthy countries do not have to purchase factory farmed animal products. Also, the cheapest and most ubiquitous food options don't come from animals (rice, beans, vegetables, lentils, etc.) So two main points I have:

    1. No reason at all was given for why we should think food deserts mean some people have to purchase factory farmed animal products. If anything, given that plant-based foods are among the cheapest and most widely available, they should be in at least as good of a position as the average westerner

    2. If I'm wrong about the previous point, this doesn't address the previous claim that the majority of people in wealthy countries can go vegan if they wanted to

    2 votes

  10. Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society

    RNG
    Link Parent
    So to address this, many leftists are effective altruists. The critique is aimed at leftists who provide awful critiques of veganism and effective altruism. This is a subset of leftists. And even...
    • They group "leftists" into a monolith, in order to attack the group as a whole without addressing several of their underlying concerns (i.e. food deserts exist, so gaining access to vegan meals to begin with is difficult),
    • They then create a straw man argument to knock over: leftists (now addressed as a singular whole), are hypocritical ("nothing is wrong with eating the flesh of tortured innocent animals") and anti-white (you've got eyes and can see this XD),
    • Now that you've established your enemy as stupid, pivot to giving them another argument you want them to lose -- namely, that effective altruism is bad.

    As a result, your readers get the impression that "the leftists" are a bunch of dumb people (since they argue against something as obviously wholesome as veganism), so now their arguments against effective altruism must been examined with the undertone that they're incapable of reason.

    So to address this, many leftists are effective altruists. The critique is aimed at leftists who provide awful critiques of veganism and effective altruism. This is a subset of leftists. And even non-EA leftist vegans constantly criticize leftists who are okay with paying for factory farmed animals, look at any leftist vegan online space.

    Genuinely in my time on this great planet I have never seen a flesh and blood, real, actual living human being make this argument. I assume someone has -- eight billion people and all that -- but this is truly the strawest of strawman arguments.

    I've seen this take constantly, primarily from white liberals, defending their financial support of factory farming. Also the article linked an example of someone making this exact argument...

    1. Lefty people all universally have a bad take on veganism, which is that it's bad (?) because the Indians use all of the animal, and Indians are good.

    The first clause is false for reasons I addressed. I can't even make sense of what the second clause is trying to say in the present context.

    1. Because this is wrong, all Lefty People takes are also wrong

    Can you link literally anything from the article you just read that could even possibly imply this?

    1. One of their takes is that effective altruism is bad, but because they're all poor and marxists and elitists, they've accomplished nothing. Proving that effective atruism is good!

    I'm not even sure there's anything to say about this one...

    4 votes

  11. Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society

    RNG
    Link Parent
    A couple of quotes that I think best encapsulate the main point of the first two paragraphs (and they were what you were building up to it seemed like): Your issue appears to be with the tone of...

    A couple of quotes that I think best encapsulate the main point of the first two paragraphs (and they were what you were building up to it seemed like):

    To me, the tone of the article itself is a great caution against EA.

    Your issue appears to be with the tone of the article, not the content of the article, which ironically is precisely what the article is criticizing.

    I love articles like this because the mask has slipped, the extreme views have been surfaced, and it validates that altruism is not the goal - ideological supremacy is.

    This is honestly a bizarre claim, I'm not even sure what to make of it.

    If we're just trying to stop things from dying should we be culling species that are responsible for the most predation? They do that in japan with dolphins and whales, granted for the goal of increasing fish stocks for harvesting, not protecting, but if killing 100 dolphin saved 5000 tuna would it be worth it? Or are we optimizing for the overall health and fecundity of an ecosystem?

    We kill 80,000,000,000 animals in factory farms year over year that live their lives in absolutely nightmarish conditions crafted by decades of maximizing efficiency. It's not clear what, if anything, we can do to make natural ecosystems better. One clear thing we can do is stop the torture and slaughter of 80,000,000,000 animals per year.

    6 votes

  12. Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society

    RNG
    Link Parent
    Can you provide some reason, any reason at all, to think this is true? The idea is that if we are to give to charity, we should try to maximize the positive impact of that donation, which seems...

    EA seems to solely exist to help rich people justify being rich in a world with extreme income inequality and poverty.

    Can you provide some reason, any reason at all, to think this is true? The idea is that if we are to give to charity, we should try to maximize the positive impact of that donation, which seems like that's a good idea.

    I want a world where it is impossible to become a billionaire in the first place and everyone is able to live their lives healthy, safely and however they wish within reason.

    I'm not sure why one would think that'd be incompatible with effective altruism.

    12 votes

  13. Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society

    RNG
    Link Parent
    I'm not sure why (or even if) you think food deserts falsify the claim linked. If you do, you didn't provide any reason to think this is the case. If I'm reading the comment correctly, it seems...

    Nah. I'll put as much effort into my rebuttal as this blogger did into their research ❤️

    I'm not sure why (or even if) you think food deserts falsify the claim linked. If you do, you didn't provide any reason to think this is the case. If I'm reading the comment correctly, it seems like you felt the article was low effort and in turn your response was low effort, which if it were me would be a good reason to think that maybe I shouldn't have posted the reply.

    Vaguely, the argument: "Poor people are making me feel sad for making a lot of money, then donating a portion of it (for tax receipts). They need to stop hurting my feelings, or I'll stop building [1] hospitals!!"

    This wasn't the argument; respectfully I don't think a sincere effort to honestly engage with the substance of the article was put forward.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on "The reason I'm not an atheist is that I think the philosophical arguments against it are unanswerable" (gifted link) in ~humanities

    RNG
    Link Parent
    @TangibleLight this relates to a conversation we have had before :)

    @TangibleLight this relates to a conversation we have had before :)

    1 vote

  16. Comment on "The reason I'm not an atheist is that I think the philosophical arguments against it are unanswerable" (gifted link) in ~humanities

    RNG
    Link
    Consciousness and God (an anti-physicalist's take) I feel a certain kind of negative way about Hart gesturing at minds being merely mechanical if God doesn't exist. I have defended panpsychism...
    • Exemplary

    Consciousness and God (an anti-physicalist's take)

    I feel a certain kind of negative way about Hart gesturing at minds being merely mechanical if God doesn't exist. I have defended panpsychism here before, and have spent the past few years digging into all of the contemporary philosophy of mind literature. I'll try to put forward a basic sketch of the case for anti-physicalism, you can see if you find it persuasive, and then we can see if there's a good case from anti-physicalism to God.

    1. The trouble with consciousness: an explanation

    The issues in contemporary philosophy of mind come from analyzing our language about consciousness. All the arguments in the literature seem to boil down to analyzing the concepts we have related to consciousness, and seeing what these concepts "point to" in reality (if anything) and whether they are pointing at the same things. We seem to have two very different kinds of concepts to describe what brains do. One is known as phenomenal concepts and the other as physical concepts. Understanding arguments in pop philosophy like "Mary's room" or "the zombie argument" help with understanding the conceptual distinction.

    1.1 Phenomenal concepts

    Phenomenal concepts are language we use when we talk about "redness" or "pleasure". It is the "what-it's-likeness" or "qualitative nature" of an experience. The taste of mint, the smell of coffee. There are two important elements of these concepts: ineffability and privacy. These concepts are ineffable, which is to say that there is at least something about the experience that cannot be described to someone who hasn't had the experience before. If you are colorblind, I can't tell you what "redness" is, because when I talk about redness, I verbally "point" at an experience that only color-sighted people have had. They are "private" for roughly the same reason; we can never learn what it feels like to use echolocation by examining bat brains.

    1.2 Physical concepts

    Physical concepts are all of the other kinds of language we use. Neuronal firings, avoidance behavior, disposition to become violent, etc. These are the "quantitative properties" of an experience. Quantities fit neatly in formulas and models.

    1.3 The core of the problem

    It's a trivial truth that if there are indescribable aspects of our experience, then they cannot be described in our physical theories. There's a seeming gap between our phenomenal and our physical concepts. To use Saul Kripke's example, there's something very different between pain and c-fibres firing. How can we reconcile these seemingly incongruent ways of describing brain and mind stuff?


    2. The solutions

    2.1 Solution one: physicalism

    It's important to note that "common sense" physicalism (the thesis that our experience is ineffable/qualitative AND describable by physics) is not a major position in philosophy of mind largely for reasons that ineffability trivially entails indescribability.

    2.1.1 Type-a physicalism: deny the conceptual gap

    One way to go is to deny that the phenomenal concepts described above accurately pick out anything in the world. This involves denying the ineffable, private nature of our experiences. All there is to our experience is what is captured by the physical concepts. One major way to go is illusionism (a view (allegedly) held by Daniel Dennett) where we are in error about the nature of our experiences, at least as far as we think they are ineffable/private. Our beliefs about our experiences are due to some kind of conceptual confusion, or maybe some kind of misleading intuition humans are predisposed to have. Others think that philosophers are incorrect in identifying ineffability/privacy with normal "folk" usage of phenomenal concepts.

    Whatever the diagnosis of the conceptual confusion, there isn't any genuine conceptual/language "gap" between some facts about our first person experiences and third person facts about brains and if there is, the concepts in conflict with physics don't actually point to anything in reality.

    2.1.2 Type-b physicalism: "identities don't need explaining"

    The dominant type-b view is endorsed by a famous philosopher David Papineau. He grants that there is a genuine conceptual gap between our ineffable, private experiences and brain states. But, they are identical, and identities do not require a scientific explanation. Explanation here means something like a scientific description, not merely something like a story consistent with science. They aren't conceptually identical the way bachelors and unmarried men are, but they are identical nonetheless.

    Take for instance The Morning Star and The Evening Star. The ancients thought these were two different stars, but it turns out, they are the same planet Venus! They had two different concepts that pointed at the same object. This doesn't require specifically an explanation; no scientific theory needs to tell us why Venus is identical to Venus. When people pointed to either star, in both cases they were pointing to Venus. When I say "I'm in pain!" I'm pointing at something inside myself, so says Papineau, and whatever I'm pointing at may just turn out to be c-fibres firing, to use the example from before. Other cases with these kinds of identities that aren't conceptual identities are Superman and Clark Kent or the clear liquid that fills rivers and lakes and the chemical compound H2O.

    2.2 Solution two: anti-physicalism

    I will not provide a robust defense of anti-physicalism about the mind here, as that would take too much time. Some view type-a views as denying the most obvious aspects of reality, or type-b views as running into issues such as psychophysical harmony or problems with brute emergence. Regardless, I will set aside a full defense of anti-physicalism and merely survey some of the most popular views.

    2.2.1 Property dualism (dual aspect monism, Russelian monism, etc.)

    These views say, roughly, that there are two fundamental kinds of properties; phenomenal properties and physical properties. The phenomenal concepts are about the phenomenal properties, and the physical concepts are about the physical properties.

    2.2.2 Panpsychism

    This view, esp the popular Russellian panpsychism, says that fundamental entity(s) have an intrinsically phenomenal nature, and this phenomenal nature bears the physical quantitative properties described by physics.

    2.2.3 Substance dualism

    This view says that we are a soul, and that souls bear phenomenal properties, and physical objects bear physical properties. Our soul is embodied in a particular brain, but is distinct from it.

    2.2.4 Idealism

    There are lots of views here that aren't popular enough nowadays to dig into, but roughly the idea is that, if type-a physicalists deny that our phenomenal concepts accurately point to anything in reality, then idealists (usually) say that our physical concepts do not accurately pick out anything in reality.


    3. Conclusion: where is God?

    If you made it this far, thank you kindly for reading this, I put my heart into it ❤️. Would any of the anti-physicalist solutions, if true, provide unique evidence for God? If there are fundamental properties like physical properties, and those aren't a problem for atheists, why would fundamental phenomenal properties, objects, or substances? Maybe substance dualism cries out for a God to play the role of ensouling minds into bodies, but many indigenous and eastern cultures have had no trouble believing in souls without The Un-ensouled Ensouler™.

    I'm an agnostic without much leaning one way or the other, but maybe you can reference this next time someone says something like "atheists think our brains are just mechanisms!" or something similar.

    10 votes

  17. Comment on What is something you're holding together? in ~talk

    RNG
    Link Parent
    We actually did a philosophy of religion book this time that was a dialogue between theist Joshua Rasmussen and atheist Felipe Leon called Is God the Best Explanation of Things? [1]. Highly...

    We actually did a philosophy of religion book this time that was a dialogue between theist Joshua Rasmussen and atheist Felipe Leon called Is God the Best Explanation of Things? [1]. Highly recommend; lots of good stuff related to modal skepticism, arguments from limits (as they relate to priors), and genuinely novel arguments from both.

    It was a fun read; we would read one author's chapter and the other author's response chapter each week and meet up to discuss.

    [1] https://philpapers.org/rec/LEOIGT

    2 votes

  18. Comment on What is something you're holding together? in ~talk

    RNG
    Link
    I run an analytic philosophy book club that's a few years going at this point. If I don't de-conflict schedules, check in on folks, and set a layout for the discussion the group would collapse in...

    I run an analytic philosophy book club that's a few years going at this point.

    If I don't de-conflict schedules, check in on folks, and set a layout for the discussion the group would collapse in a couple of weeks. I get a lot of value out of it, and I don't mind too much since everyone in the group contributes substantially to the discussion.

    5 votes

  19. Comment on Palantir was allegedly hacked, exposing CIA collusion and deep-rooted global surveillance/meddling in ~tech

    RNG
    Link
    Why would anyone think this is true? This tweet provides zero evidence for its claims. The tweet itself certainly doesn't meaningfully count as evidence. Who's alleging this? Not even Kim Dotcom...

    Why would anyone think this is true?

    This tweet provides zero evidence for its claims. The tweet itself certainly doesn't meaningfully count as evidence. Who's alleging this? Not even Kim Dotcom himself is alleging this, the subtext is that he got this from someone else who is claiming this, but this further source seems to be "trust me bro".

    The content of the tweet actually seems more expected on the "I'm lying while doing a hit tweet on Palantir" hypothesis than it is the "Dotcom has a reliable source from a Palantir hack" hypothesis. And, not for nothing, but our prior in Dotcom lying should be pretty high.

    16 votes

  20. Comment on Liberals who were formerly far-left (communist, anarchist, etc.), what led to you coming to liberalism? in ~society

    RNG
    Link Parent
    Yes, I actually identify as a liberal.

    Does anyone actually identify as a liberal?

    Yes, I actually identify as a liberal.

    7 votes