quiet_NaN
56m ago
I read a bit in that study, and I am not exactly overwhelmed.
The abstract talks about X2 statistics. Now I am not a statistics nerd, but I have encountered the letter χ (chi) in passing and happen to know that it does not identify as X or x.
Also, what one sentence claims, the next takes away:
Among adolescents who underwent medical gender reassignment, psychiatric morbidity increased markedly during follow-up [...]
Only to note that [my addition, emphasis mine]:
After adjusting for prior psychiatric treatment [which was a contraindication to gender reassignment], all gender-referred adolescents had similarly elevated risks of psychiatric morbidity
In the study itself, the key variable of interest was simply boolean:
Need for specialist-level psychiatric treatment before the index contact (yes/no) and thereafter (yes/no) was recorded.
The impact of the quality of life on visiting a psychiatrist is hard to quantify. Both a patient who is undergoing exposure therapy to better deal with their fear of spiders before moving to the countryside, and a patient locked up in forensic psychiatry after killing someone during a psychotic episode would simply fall in the "specialist-level psychiatric treatment" bin.
The statistics section briefly discusses confounders:
In the next step, controlling for possible confounders: Birth year and index year and finally adding the need for specialist-level psychiatric treatment before the index contact.
There is no discussion of any of the less obvious confounders. After all, some patients got interventions and some did not -- based on their case histories, not on some RNG, so they must systematically differ. Trivially, having gotten a medical gender reassignment might make a patient more trusting to seek out sensitive medical help (e.g. psychiatric care) in the future. Or perhaps the eye color of the doctor deciding on the intervention is both correlated with their decision -- green-eyed doctors approve more, but getting treated by a green-eyed doctor will also drive 10% of patients mad. (Unlikely, the point here is to illustrate the required paranoia when separating confounders from the effect of the intervention.)
As a data point for the benefits and risks of gender-related interventions, this study does not tell us a lot either way.
quiet_NaN
1hr ago
- people with dysphoria pre- some form of transition (blockers, hormones, surgeries)
- people with dysphoria post- transition
- people without dysphoria as controls
One problem is that when considering the effect of an intervention, this is basically an apples-to-oranges-to-licorice comparison.
The gold standard for determining the effect of an intervention would be a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Take a patient and then prescribe them either a puberty blocker or a placebo, so that neither you nor they know what they got, and then follow up on the outcome years later.
Obviously this is hard to do for ethical reasons. But anything else risks simply measuring confounders. Perhaps the people opting for intervention simply had a higher trust in their medical system, and consequently were also more likely to seek psychiatric help with other problems. Or a million other things.
The kind of people who say "no one should transition" don't so much believe some one "isn't their stated gender", they question the very concept of gender. I think it's a strong argument, "gender" is effectively a religious belief. Specifically it seems that it's a secular version of the belief in a soul, and I think it's fair to say that this is not a valid basis for a medical intervention
This is not my experience. The anti-trans side believes very strongly in their conception of gender, hence all the bathroom bans. Someone who actually rejected the concept of gender might preach some kind of pansexuality where you simply do not care what kind of sex bit your partners have. They might reject the very concept of straight and gay couples because There Is No Gender, Man.
By contrast, the people most offended by trans people believe very strongly in the existence of gender, they just happen to think that it is identical to sex-assigned-at-birth.
quiet_NaN
13hr ago
The Iranian deal is also unlikely to cure cancer and pause AGI research. Better people than Trump have tried to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The way I see it, the current incursion into Lebanon was likely a response to Hezbollah attacks which were a response on the US/Israeli bombing of Iran. If three years down the road, Hezbollah has recovered enough to decide to send rockets towards Israel, it is unlikely that Iran will close the Strait over Israel returning fire.
"Recognizing the right to exist" is overrated anyhow. Northern Cyprus is not recognized by anyone (except Turkey), yet they do not get invaded. Ukraine was recognized as a state by Russia, did not stop them from getting invaded. I am sure the PRC is reluctant to use the official name (Republic of China) of Taiwan (and they may or may not invade eventually, but how much they recognized them beforehand makes little difference.
If Iran could "drive all the Jews into the sea" at little cost to themselves, they would do so. Likewise, if Israel could turn Iran into a failed state a la Somalia at little costs to themselves, they would also do that in a heartbeat. Luckily, neither is in the position to do either.
As an aside, "Israel's right to peacefully exist" is very much moot because their current government is not trying to exist peacefully. They fully support settlers taking over the West Bank (where the Palestinians are ruled by less murderous organizations), and pretty much leveled Gaza to destroy Hamas. If Netanyahu and his even-further-right ministers had consistently destroyed illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, you could argue that Israel is just trying to exist peacefully. But instead, their plan seems to be to create a Greater Israel consisting of whatever territory they can grab.
quiet_NaN
23hr ago
Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas
I was aware that he was doing this, but I was not aware that he was on the record saying as much. I am totally bedazzled on how he could stay in power after Oct 7. Any opposition party who just printed this slogan on a billboard with his name underneath it should have won against him handily.
It seems that the Israeli right and Hamas were conspiring to prevent a two-state solution, and both got their wish. Of course, they both have quite dissimilar ideas about the specifics of how the one state should look like. Given Oct-7 and the Israeli reaction to it, it positively seems a monkey-paw variety of wish for either of them.
While MAGA deserved to lose their little Iran adventure, Netanyahu deserved to lose even more. His whole strategy for dealing with the Palestinians is to press the "defect" button as fast as he can. That is rarely a winning strategy.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
It just makes less sense from my POV (the MOU was seen as a victory for Hezbollah, it would make no sense to undermine it).
Seconded. The US-Iran deal is not bad for Hezbollah, e.g. it acknowledges that Iran has an interest in what happens in Lebanon.
It is also not bad for Hezbollah's overlords, i.e. the IRGC -- otherwise Iran would simply not have signed the deal.
My understanding is that Hezbollah did attack Israel with rockets when the Iran war began, and in return Israel bombed Beirut and invaded south Lebanon, and is openly destroying villages with the aim of displacing Lebanese.
Quite frankly, I do not like Hezbollah, but them attacking Israeli troops in Lebanon who are busy with genocide-through-displacement seems one of the less objectionable things they did.
quiet_NaN
2d ago
Let me rephrase that. I think nuclear war -- even though probably not an x-risk -- is really bad and we should try to avoid things which make it more likely, including reducing the number of warheads, disincentivizing states from obtaining nukes and incentivizing nuclear disarmament.
Suitable tools to do that are diplomacy and sanctions. And first and foremost, international law. Sure, like all law, it is just make-believe, but in practice it works well enough. Denmark could afford a nuclear program, and if they felt that the Gemans were going to invade again sooner or later they would have one. Instead, they get to live in a pacified Europe where the marginal security offered by nukes is simply not worth it.
I feel that Trump and Bibi are just accomplishing the opposite. Now, I am fine with using Stuxnet to destroy Iranian centrifuges. Bombing their enrichment program is probably already an undue step of escalation (especially as it likely used intel learned from UN inspections), as is assassinating their nuclear engineers. Killing their head of state in a botched attempt at regime change sends a terrible message.
Any country in the world which has less cozy relations with Trump than the Saudis will notice that recently, one head of state got kidnapped and one got assassinated by him, and how it was basically impossible for these states to hurt the US militarily. They will also notice that North Korea was not targeted, and conclude that this likely has something to do with their nuclear weapons.
The Iran debacle showcases that in a world full of strongmen, you want nuclear deterrence. Any supporter of the Iranian regime who was on the fence wrt nukes will conclude as much -- Iran can't squeeze the balls of the world economy through Hormuz forever.
Netanyahu seems like a foolish hero of some Greek tragedy who wanted to thwart the prediction of some oracle and thereby causes it to be fulfilled. His and Trump's violent disregard for international law have made the world less safe everywhere.
quiet_NaN
3d ago
Why wouldn't they just invite Russia in to offer a marginally less shitty deal than the one you're proposing USA should offer them?
I think traditional Russian allies in the ME are Syria (under Assad, mainly) and (wait for it) Iran. If Russia started bombing Iran, they would need to find someone else to build their drones against Ukraine, and I am not sure if Israel has the production capacity.
quiet_NaN
3d ago
They're continuing the war in Lebanon and stating that they intend to continue the war in Lebanon regardless of its impact on the stated policy goals of the USA.
They are obviously lying. Israel had excuses to invade Lebanon since forever, and it seems very likely that the Hezbollah attacks which provoked the current excursion were in turn a response to the attacks on Iran.
Wrecking the peace talks is the real objective, not an unintentional side effect.
Not that this detracts from your point.
quiet_NaN
3d ago
For what it's worth, I read
So plan trusters, antisemities, pro-Palestinians, shitlibs, anyone.
as obviously tongue-in-cheek. After all, very few here self-describe as antisemites or shitlibs. The fact that you did not include a slur for the people taking the side of the Israeli government (genocide apologists?) does not mean that you did not want them to reply, and the banned poster was not arguing in good faith.
quiet_NaN
3d ago
It seems rather obvious that the Iran war was Israel's idea, and they managed to sell it to Trump.
There are ways they can respond to the odd missile which do not blow up the world economy. Blow up a few more pagers or whatever.
but when the Israelis said "Never again", it wasn't just an empty statement.
Come on. How many thousand Jews does Iran murder in their camps per day, again?
Sure, Oct 7 was bad, and Iran is partly to blame for arming the murderous thugs known as Hamas, but it was still just a terrorist attack, not a genocide. Personally, if I were arguing for Israel's side of things, I would stay the hell away from genocide rhetoric, because the party most likely to have crossed the line from ordinary war crimes to that is not Iran.
For example, they are demolishing villages in Lebanon. The aim is clearly to forcibly displace the native population. Arguably, that is already genocide.
Personally, I have very little sympathy for the objective of keeping Iran away from nukes. "A Middle-Eastern country run by bloodthirsty, slightly genocidal religious nutjobs has nukes" is something we have survived before. If we can get Iran not to develop nukes with some modest effort (e.g. Obama's deal), I am all for it. If we need to wreck the world economy to prevent it, it is simply not worth it.
What's really funny is that Israel's enemies don't understand that it's America that protects them from Israel. The dissolution of the friendship between the US and Israel is not good news for Iran, Syria, etc.
We will just have to see, won't we? I am a bit skeptical that their current strategy of jeopardizing the opening of Hormuz will endear them to the autocrats of the gulf states. Israel does not have the manpower to occupy Iran. I think it is fair to say that cowing Iran through conventional air power has been tried extensively. Extending the bombing to civilian infrastructure will not help.
Perhaps they can nuke Iran, but at that point the gulf autocrats might feel obliged to do something about them for appearances sake, even if they secretly welcome them decimating a rival regional power. Their population does not get to vote, but Israel killing a few tens of millions of Muslims might still incite some anger.
Last year, Israel weathered the Iranian drone and missile attacks very well in part because the US and their regional allies were shooting them down. If the US decides that the crazies bombing each other in the ME does not concern them, things might turn out differently.
On a longer timeline, being cut off from US military tech will definitely hurt Israel. How many different weapon systems can a country of nine million citizens develop by themselves, really?
quiet_NaN
3d ago
Wait, Trump and JD say (some) things which sound obvious and true to my ears? Is today opposite day or something, or has Trump's handler been replaced?
At least the Israeli ministers are still acting like comic book villains. They think that if they can thwart a US/Iran peace, perhaps they will still get their favorite outcome of Trump glassing Iran.
Personally, I think Trump should simply give Netanyahu 24 hours to retreat from Lebanon before we find out how well protected the IDF troops there are against US airstrikes.
quiet_NaN
3d ago
To be fair, what Trump did to his NATO allies was much less of a betrayal than the move Israel is now pulling. If he had invaded Greenland or made a deal where Putin gets to invade the Baltic countries without US interference, that would be in a much more similar ballpark.
The US has been waging war against Iran on behalf of Israel. Israel considers Iran to be a threat to their existence (not entirely without reason, though at this point who is ultimately responsible for the bad blood between them is akin to the hen-egg-problem).
If you call on your big brother to help you in a fight, that means that you are conceding control of the fight. Of course, a smart elder brother would refuse to fight for a younger sibling just itching for blood, and consider that their sibling will likely throw their interests completely under the bus, but that does not make Israel's behavior less bad.
quiet_NaN
3d ago
I am from Europe. The principles of international law were not developed by some pink-haired idealists, they were agreed upon after we spend a few millennia murdering each other and were getting really really good at it. Even if they are unevenly enforced, they still lead to an outcome which is vastly better than the alternative. Like OSHA handbooks, they are rules written in blood.
quiet_NaN
4d ago
It is almost as if violating international law because you have the most guns has negative downstream effects, and showing restraint might have been a better long term strategy. Who could have predicted that?
I still hold out some hope that the US/Israel relationship will turn sour and the next US president will not be shoulder deep in Bibi's rectum. Not having the top military superpower do their bidding might make Israel a bit more reluctant to escalate.
quiet_NaN
4d ago
Hormutz is just a repeat of that, except us europeans didn't even bother trying this time around.
The US violated international law by attacking Iran. Iran predictably retaliated by suspending innocent passage through Hormuz, which is also a violation of international law. What exactly should a law-abiding European nation do? We do not have the military capability to sink the US ships threatening Iran and destroy the Iranian ability to threaten innocent passage.
Personally, I would just have made a deal with Iran where it lets through ships destined for Europe and gets French enriched uranium in return. Instead we mostly did nothing and hoped that Trump would chicken out eventually, which it now seems like he did.
quiet_NaN
4d ago
The 300 billion fund is a trap for Iran and the regime. They may get the investment, but not ownership.
What would be stopping them from nationalizing the investment in a year?
The usual strategy is that whenever someone nationalizes the properties of US companies, the US backs a military coup in that country, but if the US could stage a coup in Iran we would not be in this place.
quiet_NaN
4d ago
Aka "kill everyone and let God sort them out".
If you hang a man at p(murderer)=0.5, you are not increasing justice at all.
Of course, the threshold on p(murderer) must be low enough that you can achieve general deterrence. If you require ten upstanding citizens giving eyewitness reports under oath to convict a murderer, this will make it very easy to commit murder without facing consequences.
I think that murders by private citizens are only a small fraction of the homicides committed in the last few hundred years or so. They happen, but the median homicide victim was probably killed in state-sponsored violence.
You would certainly cut down on private murders if you allowed cops to shoot whomever they feel are up to no good. But this will reliably lead to the "up to no good" designation being applied to political enemies, entrenching whomever is in power, which is generally a terrible idea.
quiet_NaN
5d ago
Regime Change: Nowhere close. Very, very conditional surrender.
I would dispute even "conditional surrender", at least as far as the Iranian side is concerned. It is (or will or would be) a negotiated peace. Both sides make some concessions, so both sides have some points they can try to sell as victory.
By points, Iran has won rather clearly.
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The regime survived and is likely strengthened. The US and Israel dropping bombs on Iranians is worth more propaganda-wise than what a thousand propagandists could accomplish in a decade.
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Iran has established that it does control the strait of Hormuz and thus can squeeze the balls of the world economy whenever they feel like it.
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Iran has also set a precedent that attacking them is, if not a presidency-ending mistake, at least a serious blunder which will cost the president a lot of support.
Iran was not in an enviable situation. The US and Israel had a technological advantage on a scale that it was not even funny and could bomb them at will for months. But the US did not achieve any strategic goals from these tactical victories.
Personally, I abhor war, and I do not consider Trump's and Netanyahu's war even remotely justified. So I celebrate not only the end of the conflict but also the fact that the warmongers had to retreat with their tail between their legs.
For what it's worth, I think it's good policy today to sign the deal. I even think the overall terms of the deal can be a net victory for the United States.
Compared to a continuation of the war? Sure. Let me try a metaphor. If I were to find myself in a firefight with multiple cops, the best strategy would probably be to throw away my gun and announce my surrender. It would satisfy my preferences better to get charged with assault than to be a corpse full of lead. Still, calling it a "victory" would be a bit of a stretch. Taking a step back, I should probably ask myself what life decisions I took prior to that which lead me to the situation, and re-evaluate them with the benefit of hindsight. Like "why the fuck did I think picking a gunfight with the police was a good idea?"
Iran did not pick this war, Trump did. His deal will be compared to Obama's deal, and it will be found wanting even before taking into consideration all the expenses in materiel and lives to set the table for it.
And removal of sanctions is a Good Thing full stop. Sanctions do not work to change regimes, they work to punish populations.
I am fine with sanctions against Putin (at least since 2022), at least to the degree that it is a voluntary decision by countries not to buy certain resources from the sanctioned party -- obviously Putin should still be free to sell his oil to Cuba, if they want it. A good chunk of the Russian economy is used to support his war of aggression, and it can be more effective to deny him hard funds than to continue to do business with him and buying more weapon systems for Ukraine to counter the effect of his additional funds. The Russian fossil fuel industry is basically the money tap for his clique, so it is hitting the people responsible. By contrast, banning e.g. Russians from OnlyFans would disproportionally hurt sex workers who are not politically responsible for Putin. (I am sure some of the money from the porn industry is also funneled to the oligarchs, but I would be surprised if they managed as large a fraction of the surplus as with fossil fuels.)
quiet_NaN
5d ago
Obligatory source article on weirdness points: LW.
Which makes the "effective" part seem like a lie. Lots of charity involves convincing normies to give you money, and they basically suck at that.
The EA criticism of traditional charity is not that they were ineffective at getting donations. They excel at it, actually.
Likewise, Eliezer might have recruited more people into the ratsphere if he had spent less time writing about quantum mechanics and more time pushing deepities at people.
But both actions would have sacrificed the main selling point. You can not both optimize for pulling people's heartstrings and for the actual impact of your interventions. Do the former and you will turn off the people who are interested in the latter.
Nor can you raise the sanity waterline by using cheap tricks to recruit people into your cult -- you might gain ten times as many members, but you would also turn off the people who you need the most to write on LW.
quiet_NaN
6d ago
People arguing that it's actually good and healthy to have kids around nude adults they or their parents don't know seem extremely alien to me.
Here in old Europe, nude beaches have been a thing since at least 1960, I guess. My understanding is that this is very much non-sexual nudity, generally (probably due to the sand creating friction). I do not think it is especially traumatizing for kids to see naked adults in a context where it is treated as normal.
Presumably, you mean that kids are encouraged at vibecamp, not in the sex tent specifically. I think kids should be definitely shielded from viewing sex at least until they actively start to search for it -- even more if it is strangers fucking who might be into all sorts of kinks.
I also think that it is probably a good idea to keep sex parties and everything else well separate. Bringing your kids even to the anteroom of a sex party -- where the adults are still clothed but the context is already that they will fuck each other -- would seem highly inappropriate.
That being said, I think that it is inevitable that people will hook up at vibecamp. Some will hook up with more than one partner, some even at the same time. There is a difference between the sex being the main attraction and one of the optional sideshows, though. I have been to music festivals which included fetish parties, and it did not end up setting the theme of the overall festival.
Nor is it the only part of vibecamp which may not be kid-friendly. Presumably, Doomers will attend -- as they should. An eight-year-old overhearing a discussion at breakfast where two smart people agree that it is likely that AI will kill all humans within five years will very likely be more affected than one who observed (from his hotel room, or tent or whatever, while he/she should have been long asleep) a few naked people making out during a midnight nude pool party before disappearing in the sex tent. The solution would be not to take out your sex organs or child-inapproriate beliefs where kids can see you. (There might be more child-inappropriate topics apart from sex and doom, perhaps drugs, or horror movies, discussion of wars and so on.)
quiet_NaN
6d ago
If an Islamic terrorist/spy sold a sob story about how Israel is oppressing them, would she be more sympathetic and protective of the Islamist or the Jews?
Funny, if I think a foreign entity illicitly gains access to US classified information through human sources to gain an advantage in the ME conflict, the possibility foremost in my mind is not a pink-haired SJW gave intel to Hamas.
Everyone is a security risk. Immigrants might still have ties to their country of origin. Religious people subscribe to a system of ethics which is not coextensive to US criminal law, and even non-theists might have moral codes which limit their compliance with lawful orders. Anyone might succumb to propaganda about how the US would be better as a commie or fascist state. Anyone involved in the culture war might believe that winning is more important than following the law. Women may be susceptible to love scams, men to hot women who are mysteriously into them. Anthropic is worth almost a trillion dollars, it seems reasonable to assume that the black market value of their models would range at least in the tens of billions. Many people who could not be lured to China by a million or ten might think about defection for this kind of money.
Anthropic has strong financial incentives to stop the weights of their models from leaking. I doubt that a flash drive with all their internal documentation and model weights is gifted to every employee as part of the onboarding process.
quiet_NaN
6d ago
he still outperforms pretty much all of the rest of our expert class.
As a member of the expert class (in the broadest sense), I must object. Trump is not one of us. He does not deal in facts, he deals in narratives. Few people are prouder than he is of his ignorance.
Nor is it clear that he outperforms anyone, let alone the experts. I mean, MAHA did more for measles awareness than the CDC ever did before, but that was likely not intentional. The medicine Nobel for the Paracetamol-autism link is yet another one which the woke Scandinavians deny him.
Free trade is what made the US the economic powerhouse it is today, but perhaps Trump can outperform the free market with his tariffs.
To an outside observer, the Iranian thing looks pretty bad -- botched coup, expensive air war, antagonizing rather than decapitating the regime, etc. But sure, there is a chance that the deal he will make will be much better than the Obama deal and he will get the war Nobel.
quiet_NaN
6d ago
If you are working on sufficiently powerful technology with dual-use applications, then you work for the War Department. There is no option for you to continue your preferred work while licensing only peaceful civilian applications of your product.
There is an ideology which assumes that the political leadership knows best what is good for the people, and that the industry should be subservient to their will.
There is another ideology which is based on the weird conception that people have rights, including the right to to form groups to do stuff in a way which might displease the government.
Most polities will happily strong-arm any and all resources into their survival if they feel their existence is being threatened. But with the former ideology, it is the rule, not the exception.
If you are trying to convince the government that you are not a security risk, do not hire people like this and present them as neutral experts. (No seriously, what the actual fuck were they thinking?)
Oh no, a pink-haired woman. The horror, the horror. She seems a "security risk" in that she likely did not vote for Trump. Surprisingly, that does not make her a North Korean spy.
Anthropic obviously believes that MAGA will not retain total control of the government for long, and that it is therefore not in their best interests to do a lot of ring-kissing.
If you aren't okay with the government using your technology, then don't build it.
Or you could just find a government which is not run by some mafia don in collaboration with some wannabe fascists who reflexively shout "NATIONAL SECURITY!" whenever they don't get their way. It seems unlikely that the Swiss government would use force you to allow them to use your LLM to pick Iranian schools to bomb, for example.
quiet_NaN
7d ago
I think the USG has claimed that there would be no toll for ships to be paid to Iran.
To pass the moving average threshold of the question, you would need 420 ships to transit within a week. At the moment, 2000 ships are stuck. The US has substantial assets in the region and should not take weeks to clean a passage.
Israel vs Hezbollah causing Iran to close the strait again is not a confounder, it is the most probable outcome. When people talk about the peace deal failing, that is exactly the outcome they are thinking of, I imagine. Hormuz is not an irrelevant side clause of the peace deal, it is arguably the most important short term objective for the US.
With the Church, the main thing horrifying people was not the crimes (though there was likely a higher rate of sex offenses than for the general population), but the cover-up.
If the RCC had dealt with sex offenders by sending them to some monastery on some desolate island with no kids around for 200 nautical miles, then that would have pissed off people a lot less.
Instead, the main goal was generally to keep the reputation of the church intact. If people complained, perps were given new parishes where they could continue to victimize minors.
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