People didn't always use statistics to discover truths about the world.
This, once developed, just happened to be a useful method. But given the abuse using those methods, and the proliferation of stupidity disguised as intelligence, it's always fitting to question it, and this time with this correlation noise observation.
Logic, fundamental knowledge about domains, you need that first. Just counting things without understanding them in at least one or two other ways, is a tempting invitation for misleading conclusions.
> People didn't always use statistics to discover truths about the world.
And they were much, much worse off for it. Logic does not let you learn anything new. All logic allows you to do is restate what you already know. Fundamental knowledge comes from experience or experiments, which need to be interpreted through a statistical lens because observations are never perfect.
Before statistics, our alternatives for understanding the world was (a) rich people sitting down and thinking deeply about how things could be, (b) charismatic people standing up and giving sermons on how they would like things to be, or (c) clever people guessing things right every now and then.
With statistics, we have to a large degree mechanised the process of learning how the world works, and anyone sensible can participate, and they can know with reasonable certainty whether they are right or wrong. It was impossible to prove a philosopher or a clergyman wrong!
That said, I think I agree with your overall point. One of the strengths of statistical reasoning is what's sometimes called intercomparison, the fact that we can draw conclusions from differences between processes without understanding anything about those processes. This is also a weakness because it makes it easy to accidentally or intentionally manipulate results.
I saw these arguments in the crypto scene, and they all sounded great. But I also use crypto for payments (albeit rarely)..
Now this, and I also vibe code but I'm not convinced it will change too much for the coding profession. Will probably make it suck a bit more in relation to management and juniors who will make more laziness mistakes quicker.
This is badly needed, but in my case on iOS. There are alternative frontends to most social networks, that can be used or adapted, however. https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends .. is one list.. but there are others (for example listing alternative Instagram frontends)
In another thread here, the author of "TimeCap" mentions their iOS app. I just downloaded it and am currently trying it. It blocks a lot of the junk. I've only used it for 4 or 5 minutes now, but it does a lot of what I'm looking for, so it's worth a look. There is a fee ($30/yr or $3/week) so I'm currently trying the $3/week to see if it's what I want.
I like this message, that we could choose love but we give in to fear, etc, but it seems that he means every writer has something to say that is important to be said.
IMHO that is a very optimistic take. Often it's self-serving "just write" mentality and the results are not very interesting or useful, some use writing as a thinking tool (pg comes to mind), others, most?, do it to sell something, perhaps themselves. And all this stuff that comes out that sounds good, is convincing, but misleading (aka lies or wishful thinking). And the rest is derivative or a few good (old) ideas mixed with lengthy fitting examples.
The funny thing is the local communist newspaper "Red Truth" (as if there were non-communist ones, ...) published a review of LOTR in 1977, in which they pretty much took the side of the Mordor. (It might be a made-up joke from the 90s, but the spirit of absurdity is spot on for 1977.)
The reasoning was roughly:
* Mordor is obviously meant to be USSR, as it's in the east.
* The orcs are clearly heavy industry workers, building the world of future.
* Bilbo is obviously a son from a bourgeoisie family, disgusted by hard work.
* The west is represented by elves = aristocracy, people = bourgeoisie, hobbits = landowners.
* The group of reactionaries are afraid of a made up "threat from the east", led by Gandalf.
* Gandalf = a reactionary ideologue, keeping people in state of fear of progress and knowledge.
* Saruman = protector of the oppressed, declared a traitor and destroyed by the reactionaries.
* But socialism can't be destroyed by throwing something in the fire. All the power to Mordor, surrounded by reactionary neighbors.
And these days many Russian ultra-patriots are proudly accepting the representation of Russia as Mordor and its soldiers as orcs in the war in Ukraine.
The outlined reasons are cartoonishly communist, but "The Last Ringbearer"'s worldview is not communist. It is more like "the West are liars". And yes, this does resonate in Russia.
Well, they are not entirely wrong: Tolkien was a big fan of "old England", as he saw it, with its primarily agricultural focus, and held rather dim view on industrialization and modernism. While Soviets of course were fanatics of industrialization and considered the petty bourgeoisie and kulaks (and Bagginses certainly look a lot like kulaks) their mortal enemies. Tolkien was very adamant that he does not do allegories, and yet the Soviets were right to consider him ideologically opposed to them. He was also a devout Catholic and ardent anti-Communist, so whether or not the Red Truth really declared him an enemy, they certainly would have strong reasons to.
This is unlikely, because "The lord of the rings" was translated much later. "The Hobbit" was first published in 1976, there was an announcement that there is more, but the first volume of "The Lord of the Rings" was published only in 1983.
I found an article in English [1] that mentions a newspaper article called "Tolkien's Cosmos" that does indeed find political meaning in "The Lord". But that article was written much later, in 1997. I cannot find the article itself, but judging from the time and the newspaper ("The Independent Newspaper", proudly liberal) I would guess the author was not a proponent of communism, but the opposite: he equated Mordor or Saruman with Soviet Union because he considered himself to be the part of the winning forces of the West.
This, once developed, just happened to be a useful method. But given the abuse using those methods, and the proliferation of stupidity disguised as intelligence, it's always fitting to question it, and this time with this correlation noise observation.
Logic, fundamental knowledge about domains, you need that first. Just counting things without understanding them in at least one or two other ways, is a tempting invitation for misleading conclusions.
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