This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
interestingly, GPT-4 does better on verbal GRE compared to math/quantitative. This may be because it's able to look up the definitions. By contrast, humans find math to be easier than verbal.
GPT-4 has no ability to "look up" definitions of words. It's not connected to any external databases or repositories of information.
More options
Context Copy link
If I recall correctly, its GRE scores (97th pct math, 99th verbal?) actually match the ones I got exactly, and I'm in a field that is much more the former than the latter. From what I recall, the math component had some borderline trick questions (plus I was thrown off by the need to remember conventions I hadn't used since school, like "is (angle glyph) ABC specifying the angle in clockwise or counterclockwise direction?") - of which I figure the former would be hard(er) for an LLM, though perhaps the latter would be easier - while verbal was just trivia for any aspiring wordcel grammar nazi who took five years of Latin.
The verbal section is has 1/0 element to it. You either know the right answer or you don't. Pondering over it won't help. Verbal is easy to finish with a ton of time to spare.
My experience is that the Math section has a few trick questions that can eat up too much time if you aren't fully focused or pick up on a dead-end pattern. A bunch of the smartest kids in my class ended up with a 168 or 169 because they had to leave the last 2 questions unsolved due to lazy time management. (case in point - me. I can't focus in cold AC rooms. I got a 168 in Quant and was the laughing stock of my class for a good week)
A full 169/170 still puts you at a 95th percentile. So I guess GPT got 1 question wrong....which isn't saying much.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
By this definition, I'm not human. Looks like I do have a bright future ahead in the post-AI world, while all you mathy flesh-bags are being turned into paperclips! 😁
wordcels shall inherit the earth and all that reside within it
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link