There are certainly ways to understand why people have romantic relationships based on comparison to the mating behaviors of other animals, but it is important to remember that just because humans have instincts encouraging them to do this or that as do all animals, that isn’t the same thing as saying one should do this or that. The is-ought problem and all that.
I’ve been following GamerGate for several months. There hasn’t been much evidence for left-leaning politics, but plenty of evidence for right-leaning politics. Given the connection to chan-style trolls, you’d have to be naive to expect them to take that politics axis test 100% honestly when they’re trying to provide evidence for not being right-wing.
“We took this web quiz and this is what we scored” is not particularly solid evidence.
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Actually not so much. In school people get taught a “scientific method” of observation, hypothesis, testing, and theory as if this robotic method is the only way science is done. It isn’t. You can’t really do controlled experiments when you work on historical-based sciences such as paleontology or cosmology, for example. The key part of what makes science science isn’t controlled experiments, and so forth but rather just that the conclusions are based on evidence and can change when there is new evidence.
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If it helps, think of them as RedPiles
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Well, John Gottman and his team of graduate students would argue with you there. (Google “Sound Relationship House” and “Gottman Method Couple Therapy.”) As would Susan Johnson and her graduate students (Google “Emotionally Focused Therapy” - the most robust outcome data of any couple therapy method, and that includes, for once, CBT.)
But yes, in general, questions like that are difficult to pin down to a scientific method because, among other things, defining terms is so difficult (e.g. what does “repair” mean? what constitutes “improvement” but not “repair”? how do you measure it? if the couple stays married but is miserable, is the relationship “repaired”? for how long do you have to track them - 1 year? 5 years? until they both die? and so on. You probably know this, of course.)
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Okay, not the best example I could have pulled. Also, the existence of studies of such doesn’t necessarily mean an individual will be able to apply those in a practical way, in a useful amount of time, with their specific partner, without training or professional assistance.
But you get what I was driving at I think.
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Would you mind clarifying what those are, specifically?
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No. I rarely use absolute statements and didn’t above.
I’m making the point that the effects of gender and race diminish as socio-economic status improves. That it’s more privileged to be middle class and female or middle class and a person of colour than to be poor in UK or NZ society.
I’m not saying race and gender are irrelevant, but that elevating race and gender issues to the fore in discussions of poverty disenfranchises poor white males who then turn to racist and sexist politics. That by concentrating on improving the socio-economic status of all the economically deprived regardless of race or gender, no one group is or is seen to gain advantage at the expense of any other.
UKIP and other even more unsavoury right wing organisations are becoming a threat in UK politics because many poor white people feel like they are the only ones who speak for them. I can understand where they’re coming from, because that’s where I came from. I disagree with them, but even being able to understand is seen as a thought crime in middle class circles.
And being poor sucks.
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533 replies. Not bad for a beginner’s guide.
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The irresistible allure of the passive voice?
Mistakes were made
– Richard M. Nixon, among others.
Many political stances have their roots in novel, or at least idiosyncratic interpretations of the world. It’s too much to expect them all to agree on consistent and universal definitions.
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Oh you and your details.
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Gaming often involves the figurative shooting of people. The idea that it isn’t political from its very roots is ridiculous.
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538 comments in! Keep posting!
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Quick explanation: As extreme authoritarian you are a scourge upon the world for libertarians, regardless of left-right alignment. I support gay rights or drug users rights. But I will never support the abolition of presumption of innocence rule, “social justice” robbery of other’s hard-earned money, the abolition of First Amendment, or boorish snooping into private business and free market’s mechanisms.
So, economists should be sent to charm school?
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That explains it much better. I guessed the show correctly, but recognized the person as Daenerys and couldn’t match the scene. This is exactly the sort of rich details that I nearly always miss.
I am familiar with the show, and saw parts of it. I dont’ watch/read these things much anymore, due to being somewhat oversensitive to affection-based interpersonal transactions (when I cannot get any I don’t exactly want to see others succeeding, even in a movie/book, disproportionately hurts which is silly), hence my usual diet of sci/tech documentaries/books. No ouchy reminders in those fields.
Movies get tricky. Once there are too many not-distinct-enough characters I lose track of who is who rather annoyingly quickly. (Referring to the plot summary on wikipedia while watching one is an expedient workaround.) Somewhat less badly but similarly it goes with books; all the names and relations get confusing fast (there are exceptions of authors, namely A.C. Clarke). Tech stuff visualises (and keeps track of) better.
Not so bad, online it is at least mostly confined to text and that is less “soft” to interpret. Its ambiguity is nothing in comparison to visual cues, and tracking them down, while doable, can tie down all the brain power quickly especially if it has to be done in real time and in unconfined reality, especially in group setting where there are more people to track. Generic (or, for better results, person-tailored) personality models (to model the other people’s inner states to track, and compare against the external signs, which I can read roughly but not with useful accuracy, so only a gross desync between real and model can be detected) are helpful but expensive, regarding to the needed attention/focus, and when you lapse just for a while the model and reality get out of sync fast and you can start anew. And then there is the need to run several models at once for the same person to cover for the inaccuracies. And that does not even start with sending one’s own nonverbal signals, when the receiving itself without the benefits of hw acceleration takes all the CPU. The cognitive overhead of a night out can be more exhausting than the same night spent on debugging a crashed network, with fewer actual results. Alcohol helps, in terms of helping to not care so much and somewhat suppressing the social anxiety, but that’s about it.
A trick that works for day to day interactions is a simplified model, biased towards the better (or, if you have different readouts possible, pick the least conflict/uncertainty/problems-inducing interpretation). Limited payoff, but also runs cheap and you can run it on autopilot.
With such stacking of variables, you end up with learned helplessness rather inevitably. Better do something tech-related, a success is more probable in that direction.
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is my new band name.
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