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ChlamydiaJones posted:I wouldn't be bored at all with a serious critique, I'd love to read it. Like I said, this isn't my field but the subject is interesting and important. I don't see any comments either but sometimes it's hard to find rebuttal articles starting from the original. It is somewhat my field so I guess I have to be a bit more careful in posting online about it then how I would talk about it in a general conversation. So Ill just post whatever is remarkable without trying to imply or conclude things from it that I cant fully substantiate. That said, I agree that the subject is interesting and important, but at the same time I feel that is the reason why we should be extra careful in discussing it. The last years there seems to have been a large amount of anti-conservative papers published. While there may be some truth in some of them, the majority seems pretty flawed which is a bad thing because it ultimately destroys every possibility for a scientific discussion. (I hope that makes sense, Im having a hard time explaining what I mean exactly, I guess you can compare it with the research decades ago finding negative correlations between IQ and minorities which was picked up as "prove" for the inferiority of minorities instead of a tool to find out where this disadvantage came from and how it could be "cured") To understand most of the problems, you need to know a bit about statistics. You probably know most of what I will say already, but Ill explain it anyway, just to be on the safe side. So sorry if I explain the simple things too much, I don't mean it in a condescending way. In the social sciences most research is probabilistic in it's nature. Because there are a lot of different effects that can't really be isolated on their own, usually large groups are compared to groups in other situations and the difference in averages of these two groups are compared. What basic hypothesis-testing boils down to is "how big is the probability that, if there is no true difference in the population, we would still find these differences in averages"? That means there is always a small risk of taking the wrong conclusion, but we have all agreed that such a risk is inevitable. This all makes a lot of sense if you have clear predictions and comparisons. A risk of 1% of saying something has an effect when it really doesn't isn't that bad, especially if you have multiple experiments. This is a problem however if instead of measuring 1 thing, you are measuring 100 things. By definition you are almost guarantueed to make some wrong conclusions in such a case. Now I know that in these experiments, they measured an insane amount of things, even more problematic, they literally measured both conservatism and voting behavior. These do not show an effect. What does show a correlation is this weird scale portrayed as "conservatism" actually consisting of questions such as support for conventional sex-roles. It really does not come as a surprise to me that people who think women are inferior, also think other races might be inferior, but is that really proving some sort of causal link between conservatism and racism or does it just show that people who discriminate more against "A" will also do so against "B"? The same thing I just posted about the many different scales they could have used also goes for the covariates. Every extra test you run increases the chance of making the wrong conclusion. We don't know how many effects the authors tested, but they measured more than 40. So I can't claim the authors tried all 40 and just reported what worked, I can only say that either they measured all these things without intending to use them which would be strange, or that they might have tried all resulting in an insane chance of making the wrong conclusions. Especially because some could be used as predictors and some as covariates. (if they had 10 predictors and 10 covariates, they could have ran over 100 combinations of them) Even assuming they only ran 1 test, there is still the non-correlation between actual conservatism and the racism-measures. Another problem is that the authors claim causality. There is quite a lot of research linking conservatism to lower IQ (though there are some problems with most of those as well, I still think there is enough evidence to accept the basic effect). The new and bold claim of this paper is that a lot IQ actively makes you more conservative and that this in turn leads to racism. There is no way they can claim this on the basis of their data. All their results are purely correlational. I actually think there are more logical explanations for the same effect, for example people with lower IQ generally growing up in neighborhoods in which there is more inter-group conflict. tl:dr version 1. there is so much freedom in data-use that it is unclear whether effects are real or false-positives 2. the measurement of conservatism doesn't really measure conservatism. Conservative political ideology doesn't show same effects 3. correlation does not show causation All of the above said, I do think a correlation between lower IQ and increased racism exists. It is actually pretty logical from everything we know about human behavior. So even though I do not like the conclusions this paper makes, it does not mean I completely reject the idea. I just don't think this paper is good prove for the relation, and I think papers such as this are ultimately detrimental in trying to find ways to reduce racism. musical monkey fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Sep 13, 2012 |
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Sep 13, 2012 23:50
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musical monkey posted:tl:dr version I completely misread which article you were commenting on. I thought you were commenting on the African American homicide paper from Indianapolis which is why I asked for an extended critique. I don't know intentional violence / intervention literature at all and kind of randomly picked that paper. The conservative paper I posted with the caveat that it shouldn't be considered alone since there are lots of people taking shots at this question and find all sorts of stuff. Your response does a great job of describing multiple testing and why you drat well shouldn't do it. Same with Causation; show me where you met Hill's Criteria and we can talk. That paper clearly doesn't do that. What do you consider the authoritative neuroscience paper on racism/IQ/conservatism? I assume your a social science analyst? Epidemiology here - I love the Sage books for some of those ridiculously complicated hierarchical methods you guys love so much (because of how complicated your data is).
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Sep 14, 2012 01:42
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trollstormur posted:In the latter half of the twentieth century purposeful changes were made in our economic order. The old money owners of productive assets started a long campaign to replace the labor income of the American people with easy credit. Every year we were becoming poorer and this fact was hidden from us by the ability to borrow our lost wages at interest. We borrowed it to give it right back to the people we borrowed it from to purchase from them the things we made and now the people who are owed money are the same people who have all the money. They could easily jumpstaet the economy if they cleared all the debts and lent it back out again, but the wealthy didn't get to where they are by giving up something for something of less value. Thank you.
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Sep 14, 2012 16:28
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dorkasaurus_rex posted:Ask him why the Chinese economy is expanding while ours isn't (well, hardly at all). Ask him what, if any role, the Chinese government's actions has had on their own domestic economy. Remember according to him China is capitalist when it does things successfully, and anti capitalist when it doesn't. Because capitalism causes success and anti capitalism failure, you see? PokeJoe posted:I once got him to claim it was the US government's fault that slavery was practiced in the US. They have to, because the growth of African chattel slavery was one of the biggest effects free trade / protocapitalism had on the world when it appeared in the first wave of globalization in the 1500s. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Sep 14, 2012 |
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Sep 14, 2012 16:33
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He apparently had some coffee and time last night and wrote a huge amount of crazy, I got some new stuff I'll post in a bit.
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Sep 14, 2012 17:03
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Is there any proper information about where most of the bank's debt went to? The most common attack i'm seeing nowadays is that "people chose to be bad with money, i don't spend what i have!" with people implying the Euro crisis was caused because of Portuguese\Greeks\Italians borrowing money from banks to buy T.Vs and pimping sofas.
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Sep 14, 2012 17:50
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Zeitgueist posted:He apparently had some coffee and time last night and wrote a huge amount of crazy, I got some new stuff I'll post in a bit. Just post the whole drat thing here.
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Sep 15, 2012 03:41
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Is it possible to recover from a depression or deep recession without a recovery in housing? Also there was some meme or something a long time ago about how the US was 'investing in Brazilian oil but not our own' what was that about?
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Sep 15, 2012 03:45
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dorkasaurus_rex posted:Just post the whole drat thing here. I was going to but I got unfriended. 
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Sep 16, 2012 19:44
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Does anyone have a link to that study that looked at average total taxes paid in the US by income? It factored in everything, including benefits from food stamps all the way up to the mortgage interest deduction, state and local taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, etc. The results showed that nearly everyone pays around the same ~40% or so I think, with a few dramatic variations in odd circumstances. I didn't see it in the OP link section.
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Sep 17, 2012 04:08
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I recently got into a debate about racism in the justice system. I brought up the usual statistic about racial population ratios. (Blacks being 12% of the total population, but over 50% of all prisoners.) This is, in my mind, the single most demonstrative stat of the entire phenomenon, since it would be absurd to claim blacks are literally 5 times as likely to commit crimes. His response was to cite an FBI report showing that roughly 50% of all homicides in 2010 were committed by blacks. Now, I recognize the report can't account for things like judicial bias or eyewitness error, and that a systemically disenfranchised group of people is going to skew criminally regardless, but these things aren't going to sway a person who believes the justice system is totally fair anyway. What is the most succinct way I can point this out? I assumed my first argument made it self-evident, but hey, apparently not.
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Sep 17, 2012 04:35
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Morton Haynice posted:I recently got into a debate about racism in the justice system. I brought up the usual statistic about racial population ratios. (Blacks being 12% of the total population, but over 50% of all prisoners.) This is, in my mind, the single most demonstrative stat of the entire phenomenon, since it would be absurd to claim blacks are literally 5 times as likely to commit crimes. Crime and poverty go hand in hand, and systematic racism keeps a disproportionate number of blacks below the poverty level. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0715.pdf Even if the justice system was completely fair I don't think you would have a proper distribution of the population incarcerated due to factors outside the justice system.
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Sep 17, 2012 04:52
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Too bad that FBI report doesn't have subsets for income.. In my opinion, the easiest way to show racial discrimination in the justice system is through the War On Drugs. Drug use is constant across race (more or less), yet blacks (as mentioned, 12% of the population) make up 35% of drug possession arrests and 46% of the convictions. euler fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 05:35
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Most relevant thread I could find! I've decided I'd like to start learning history in a structured fashion rather than just reading the odd book about disconnected bits and pieces. I find left wing authors to be the most insightful and so I've decided I'm going to try and read Hobsbawm's "Long nineteenth century" trilogy. Is there something I should read to (briefly) inform me about the world prior to 1789, or is imagining the world as a pastiche of mud huts and swords an acceptable level of ignorance to begin the trilogy with? Edit: Also if I was planning on reading Marx, would it be a better idea to read it before or after Hobsbawm? a pwn cocktail fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 13:17
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a pwn cocktail posted:Most relevant thread I could find! Edit: It's ok, SAL used to be a subforum of D&D, but it's in A/T now so might be missed by people expecting stuff like that to be in D&D. dirby fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 14:13
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I forgot to mention the lack of effort I put into everything before suggesting I'd like to read a thousand pages of marxist history  Thanks for the links
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Sep 17, 2012 14:37
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Greatly appreciated, euler, and PokeJoe! Those reports were very helpful in compiling my response. I'll let you know what happens next.
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Sep 17, 2012 23:52
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I didn't see this in the OP, so here's a handy source on the subject of income tax in the United States. In the follow-up of the Romney videos leaked by Mother Jones, I believe that it could be quite useful. Some of my rightward-leaning relatives and friends love to squawk about how "only half of America pays income tax" without giving any context to that statement, which I believe this report helps to provide.
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Sep 17, 2012 23:55
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a pwn cocktail posted:Most relevant thread I could find! I would actually recommend familiarising yourself a little bit with the events of the 19th century before reading Hobsbawm's Age Of books. They're great, and very readable, but they deal less with the chronology of events than analysing social factors and causes and effects and that sort of thing. I think a basic level of familiarity with history is presumed. For instance, the Napoleonic Wars are examined in terms of how they affected the political and economic landscape of Europe and the world; Hobsbawm's not at all interested in telling you what actually happened in said war. I think even broad wikipedia-style summaries would be enough before reading the books, but get some knowledge of the period beforehand at least.
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Sep 18, 2012 00:00
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Ugh, does anyone have a good set of sources for why Ron Paul is horrible? Stupid libertarian facebook friend thinks returning to a gold standard and abolishing the DoE is a good thing.
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Sep 18, 2012 06:29
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I'm boggled that the downsides of the gold standard aren't obvious when you consider that you will have to dig holes in the ground to have inflation and Canada, Australia, Russia, China, and whoever else doesn't have to dig for currency will rob you blind because you needed shiny rocks. From a utilitarian standpoint, which is similar to a libertarian standpoint, gold is a finite resource that has practical applications besides counting coup. It's misplaced nostalgia. Is there a word for when someone calls someone out on something they have no right to call them on. Like: Limbaugh Calls Obama an Oreo—Again or Sarah Palin telling people to man up and calling Obama dickless? Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Sep 18, 2012 |
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Sep 18, 2012 11:03
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Also a gold standard is terrible for anyone who invests in gold since the whole idea of it is "gold is now a fixed price; no more massive returns in investment". So that's funny when you see people who have invested in gold but also want the gold standard.
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Sep 18, 2012 15:38
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the2ndgenesis posted:I didn't see this in the OP, so here's a handy source on the subject of income tax in the United States. In the follow-up of the Romney videos leaked by Mother Jones, I believe that it could be quite useful. If your friends are the type that will start complaining about your Liberal Sources, I just saw a good takedown of this in the Presidential race thread. The kicker is it's from The National Review, a conservative rag that's generally pretty well respected by that set. Babylon Astronaut posted:Is there a word for when someone calls someone out on something they have no right to call them on. Like: Limbaugh Calls Obama an Oreo—Again or Sarah Palin telling people to man up and calling Obama dickless? Well in Limbaugh's case, it is straight up racism. So a racist. Probably racist in Palin's case as well but less obviously so.
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Sep 18, 2012 20:24
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Install Gentoo posted:Also a gold standard is terrible for anyone who invests in gold since the whole idea of it is "gold is now a fixed price; no more massive returns in investment". So that's funny when you see people who have invested in gold but also want the gold standard.
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Sep 18, 2012 22:13
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Its true that you'll find people who are so deluded that they think there is some kind of magical property to gold that makes it the ideal unit of value. Some libertarians will claim that the gold standard occurs throughout history and that this proves that the free market considers gold the optimum currency. The more intelligent advocates of the gold standard will tend to recognize that the real "benefit" of the standard is that it strongly limits government intervention in the economy. First of all it largely removes the government's ability to practice monetary policy. Keynesian economists right now are advocating for higher inflation as a way to get the economy moving. A gold standard would, presumably, make it impossible for the government to actively stimulate inflation. Since inflation eats away at the value of debt (i.e. maybe you lend out five dollars of purchasing power today, and you only get back $4.50 of purchasing power thanks to inflation) this can tend to make creditors unhappy. Another way that the gold standard limits government intervention is by putting heavy constraints on spending. The government can't simply print money to purchase bonds. The idea is to create a straight jacket on government. This is currently accomplished pretty effectively by international bond markets however, which is why most serious conservative intellectuals and journals (i.e. The Economist or the Wall Street Journal) are not calling for a return to the Gold Standard.
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Sep 18, 2012 22:21
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Unrelated, but Helsing: Could you recommend any books related to the development of capitalism in the early modern period? I studied the rise of capitalism in the period only briefly, and you seem to have a pretty solid grasp on it in other threads.
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Sep 18, 2012 22:22
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Vermain posted:Unrelated, but Helsing: Could you recommend any books related to the development of capitalism in the early modern period? I studied the rise of capitalism in the period only briefly, and you seem to have a pretty solid grasp on it in other threads. Not Helsing, but I thought this was a pretty balanced intellectual and economic history of capitalism. You could go through this book in a day and it'd be worth it to do so, it offers some great general insights on the transition of the West from feudal and mercantile economies to the beginnings of the capitalist system we know today. And while it doesn't deal with the early modern period per se, Hobsbawm's "long 19th century" trilogy is another excellent supplement. the2ndgenesis fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Sep 18, 2012 |
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Sep 18, 2012 22:42
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How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor by Erik Reinert would be my first suggestions. Bad Samaritans by Hajoon Chang is also pretty good, though its a bit less comprehensive. Ultimately they make excellent companions to each other. Both of these cover topics beyond early modern capitalist development, but they also both devote substantial portions of their text to the subject. Reinert's book is somewhat more theoretical and Chang's is more historical. This paper, The Role of the State in Economic Growth, by Erik Reinert, is available online and gives a good overview of early modern economic development. This paper by Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, is not about the development of early modern capitalism but it does look at how countries that industrialized later had to adapt to these circumstances. Its a well known and widely cited paper and worth reading if you have the time and are interesting in the history of industrialization and capitalism. Since I'm recommending papers, The Road to a World Made Safe for Corporations: The Rise of the Chicago School of Economics by Robert Van Horn and Philip Mirowski is a great read on the intellectual development of the Chicago school.
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Sep 18, 2012 22:54
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Seconding Ha-Joon Chang. He's excellent and very readable.
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Sep 19, 2012 01:36
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Can someone explain to me what's going on here? (2 OR residents arrested for possible involvement in May Day vandalism, raided by FBI looking for "black clothes", "books", "paint", etc., sent to "secret court" without representation, detained for contempt) http://thesoundandnoise.com/2012/09/14/young-persons-called-to-private-grand-jury-for-owning-books/ I didn't see a thread and there's no way I'm starting one in DnD citing such a shitpost article. Is this a freak incident? Are the FBI ramping up against political dissent? Am I going to be executed for treason for watching Stephan Molyneux, anarchist Youtube philosopher extraordinaire? Should I execute myself for treason? e: forgot how to spell dissent today AgentCow007 fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 02:29
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A certain (white, male) relative of mine paid his way through business school in the '80s and has since landed himself a lower seven figure salary. As a result of this he buys pretty heavily into the Horatio Alger myth that anyone can achieve the American Dream with enough elbow grease, and he adamantly refuses to acknowledge any such thing as institutional discrimination. When I try to bring up things like institutional racism/sexism/homophobia he curtly replies that "people allow themselves buy into the victim mentality, and that's bullshit." I don't expect to change this certain relative's views anytime soon, but is there any book I could recommend him with an aim to doing so? I've thought of giving him some Zinn to read but I half-suspect he'll Google the name and refuse to read him. I may link him to some of the stuff in the OP as well.
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Sep 19, 2012 15:23
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Link him to the study done that shows that people with black sounding names and no criminal record have the same chance of getting a job as a person with a white sounding name and a felony record and then watch him try to explain it away.
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Sep 19, 2012 17:16
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Vermain posted:Unrelated, but Helsing: Could you recommend any books related to the development of capitalism in the early modern period? I studied the rise of capitalism in the period only briefly, and you seem to have a pretty solid grasp on it in other threads. Joyce Appleby's "The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism" is excellent.
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Sep 19, 2012 17:29
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Does anyone know of that study where people were less likely to support welfare programs when shown images of black people benefiting from them?
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Sep 19, 2012 17:31
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the2ndgenesis posted:
This is a good suggestion. Hobsbawm's "Age of Revolution: 1789 - 1848" is a great overview. Another recommendation that I cannot believe I somehow forgot to mention in my last post would be Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy by Barrington Moore. It's easily one of the best single volume works on the subject of economic development. Just the chapters on Britain, France and America alone are extremely insightful and interesting.
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Sep 19, 2012 17:52
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rscott posted:Link him to the study done that shows that people with black sounding names and no criminal record have the same chance of getting a job as a person with a white sounding name and a felony record and then watch him try to explain it away. Been there, done that, got this: "The sample size for that study was too small" and then an abrupt subject change. You can't change a person by confronting them, their ego gets in the way.
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Sep 19, 2012 17:52
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Does anyone know where I might find a source detailing the relative price of accommodation compared to wages in Britain from 1960's to present?
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Sep 19, 2012 20:13
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Zeitgueist posted:Been there, done that, got this: Sounds like a guy I know. I showed him the congressional report claiming food stamps were the best source of stimulus, he just chuckled and told me "food stamps are free permission for the poor to abuse the government milk teet." This is the same guy who won't go out to eat somewhere if there isn't a groupon or a discount of some kind. The same guy who will order nothing if you do drag him somewhere, and then pick off everyone's plate like he deserves a handout. My head explodes from being anywhere near him outside of work, the only place where he seems rational and well-adjusted. He also will argue with me all day about how it's impossible for voter ID laws to disenfranchise the poor. Did I mention this person is a piece of poo poo?
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Sep 19, 2012 21:49
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dorkasaurus_rex posted:You can do way better than that to drive that point home. Like the time he claimed the Lord's Resistance Army was good because they were Christian and because Obama took action against them. Or the entirety of his November 5th, 2008 show. Literally just go on MediaMatters and type in his name and you'll have an avalanche of evidence to attest to his shittiness. They're just taking things out of context! (With otherwise unedited 2 minute clips) Or, you could get Bill O'Reilly's response: "You didn't get that from me, you got that from Media Matters!"
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Sep 20, 2012 03:07
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The Casualty posted:He also will argue with me all day about how it's impossible for voter ID laws to disenfranchise the poor. Did I mention this person is a piece of poo poo? Steal his ID and burn his house down.
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Sep 20, 2012 03:09
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