Anisopterid

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

So the Sinai/Iwasaki finding that low cortisol is the most consistent marker in PASC got me thinking. Walk with me a moment.

https://t.co/UdehKWgnnd

[Brian Potter @_brianpotter]

This week on Construction Physics: how some of the most important inventions that came out of Bell Labs were a product of efforts to make better and better electronic amplifiers. https://t.co/bUocP0QuKN

[Science Banana @literalbanana]

The secret to getting away with a brazen public lie is not "being a good liar" - it's that people see your lie as useful for their goals.

You can see this in microcosm when you overlook the flaws of a sketchy psychology study if it supports your beliefs.

[Science Banana @literalbanana]

When people attribute injustice and tragedies of the past to "ignorance," I think this is mistaken in an important way. It's almost never a true lack of knowledge, but rather false knowledge or pretend knowledge resulting from pathological methods, that is at fault.

This is true in the witchcraft prosecutions, in which people were in possession of pretend knowledge about witches - that witches contract with the devil, that they bear a devil's teat, that their spirits can go abroad to hurt people, and much more. Convictions were obtained by pathological methods such as the introduction of spectral evidence, searches for said devil's teats, denial of counsel for the accused, etc.

The causal importance of the pathological methods in Salem is strengthened by the fact that in prosecution attempts in 1692 in nearby Connecticut, when "spectral evidence" and devil's teat evidence was excluded, the prosecutions could not continue and the panic ended before anyone died. The people of Connecticut were equally as "ignorant" about science or whatever as the people of Massachusetts, but did not allow pretend knowledge to kill people. They ultimately insisted on the same honest ignorance that modern courts insist on in excluding most hearsay evidence.

If anything, we are more ignorant now about witches than people of the past, because we don't produce and distribute pretend information about them. And that's a good thing!

It was structures of pretend knowledge, not honest ignorance, that maintained belief in astrology and prevented acceptance of advancement in astronomy. A lot of people STILL believe in astrology, and it is not because of ignorance as such. Ghost hunters of today are adept at misusing technology to produce "evidence" of spirit visitation, within their framework of pretend knowledge. (There is even popular pretend knowledge about the witchcraft panics themselves - the ergotism thing for example.)

Today we are still replete with pretend knowledge and invest heavily in pathological methods for its production and maintenance, to our discredit: polygraphy, all kinds of dubious methods of healing, spooky psychological studies of behavioral priming (also called nudging), mouse butt acupuncture to cure Tourette syndrome, the "placebo effect," "mass hysteria," the vast majority of "cognitive bias," etc. These will turn out to be illusion, maintained by pathological methods of evidence production, and ascribed in the future to the ignorance of our time. But they are precisely the opposite of honest ignorance.

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

Unless there is a clear idea of what “agency” means that is disciplined by something like the categorical imperative, most humans just parse an exhortation like this as “pursue power” and the result is, well, you see what it is.

But hey I’m not a captain of industry.

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

“I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.” — Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Bk 1, Ch 11

[Paul Graham @paulg]

This may be the most inspiring sentence I've ever read. Which is interesting because it's not phrased in the way things meant to be inspiring usually are.

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

“… but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.”

https://t.co/pcmStGCy2L

[Conor Browne @brownecfm]

1. As I have mentioned several times before, the moment I learned that anosmia was a cardinal symptom of Covid-19 was the moment I decided I was going to do everything in my power to not get infected with SARS-CoV-2.

https://t.co/jABvzYT3y5

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

@BackwoodzHipHop @doseone @steeltippeddove Any of these gonna find their way to HHV for us suckers in Europe?

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

@doseone @steeltippeddove @BackwoodzHipHop Hard to choose though, the whole thing doesn’t have a weak track IMO. Epinephrine Pen is also a perfect monster.

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

@doseone @steeltippeddove @BackwoodzHipHop Scales Sway is the one that has been running around in my head the most all week.

“An audience roars, while prestigiator, gathers sawed halves of assistants off floors, into glad bags, and uncomfortably laughs as he … cleans up his act.”

Gets me every time.

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

„Freedom is the courage to be disliked“, sure sure, but one has to be insensate to gladly endure punitive alienation. Liking me is not the point, being able to see eye to eye and coexist benignly is the point, and narcissistic injury stands in the way of that.

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

Is there a state lonlier than having checked and rechecked your conduct in some matter and found it to be morally good, yet still being stuck with the fact that noone is pleased with you regardless because their conscience is being drowned out by the screams of their wounded ego?

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

A more perfect being than me could surely find a way to take the same stands while sparing everyone‘s feelings more, but I am just not that perfect. So I get to eat the dark looks and sullen silence (or worse) of anyone who parses implied moral criticism as betrayal.

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

@steeltippeddove @doseone @BackwoodzHipHop are some of these going to find their way to HHV for us poor Europeans? i am hungry for this but it burns paying more shipping and tariffs than on vinyl.

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

@steeltippeddove @doseone @BackwoodzHipHop top form! loving how much goodness there is densely packed into 32 minutes. gonna be one of those where i notice something new and dope every time i spin it. thanks for starting the year off with a bang. :)

[Paul Novosad @paulnovosad]

Fascinating paper on where 6000 global elites went to college. Billionaires, CEOs, heads of state, central bankers, etc.

In a word: Harvard.

Fully 10% of global elites went to Harvard. Elite US schools are over-represented (23% IvyPlus), but nobody comes close to Harvard.

🧵

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

And in case anyone is wondering -- no, Destry is not riding again: Destry has updated his priors and lifestyle to reflect a shorter life expectancy, and is spending less time online and more time playing with his two small children, traveling, and reading great books.

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

Health update, with customary speculations.

In the last six months, I have had _two_ cases of bacterial pneumonia, and it has been bad enough that the doctor has strongly advised me to get a pneumoccocal vaccine.

I am an otherwise healthy person in my thirties. Not normal.

[Anisopterid @Anisopterid]

My medical history all but rules out almost all the other usual causes (cystic fibrosis, chemical insult, etc.), leaving an infectious one the most plausible. The pneumoccocal vaccine should help cut off the vicious cycle, at any rate.