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WhateverHappenedToNorman
15m ago
I'm just riffing on the subject of the movie, which is very much about fictionalized Salieri's inability to cope with the fact that he was unable to "speak with the voice of god".
I'm aware the real Salieri's story does not neatly fit a morality play.
MotteAnon12345
22m ago
Many (most?) major "infrastructural" financial institutions are based in NYC. These are often companies nobody has heard of but nevertheless end up handling most of dollars flowing through the world. Good examples would be DTC, BNY, and JPMC. These banks don't make that much money (except of course for JPMC) but they fulfill critical low level roles like clearing, asset custody (e.g. DTC nominally owns most financial assets in the US economy!), etc... If a court wants to impose their will on any actor in the USD centric financial system, they use these institutions to do it and NYC is the place to do it at.
Argentinian bonds are a good case study here: a NYC judge was able to keep Argentina from paying off any of its bond holders (and thereby choking its access to debt markets). Obviously, the judge had no jurisdiction over Argentina itself. But he did over the intermediaries needed to facilitate any dollar payments!
Honestly I think Salieri gets unfairly maligned a lot. Modern scholarship (forget that movie, I'm talking academic scholarship) thinks there was no real beef between him and Mozart but the rumours, even during his life, led to him having a nervious breakdown and even now in the modern day the general public (to they extent they know of him) still boo him even though they wouldn't be able to distinguish a piece by Mozart vs one by him.
The dude tutored both Schubert and Beethoven, give him some respect!
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
32m ago
I do not know what fractions of Haitians are educable, but I have worked professionally with educated Haitians who were able to perform the duties of a UMC professional job that normally requires a 120+ IQ. Of course Haiti, like most Caribbean countries, has a mixed-race elite and an almost-pure-black working class, and the people I worked with were from the Creole elite. So there is a separate question of what fraction of Haitians who are not already being privately educated are educable.
WhateverHappenedToNorman
35m ago
My dharma is not to achieve great things but at least I am at the point where I am capable of truly appreciating greatness when it is presented to me (unlike most humans) and I am thankful for that.
Well, you're doing better than Salieri, then.
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
38m ago
Compassion isn't a social affect: it's an act of the will.
This makes it sound like something you can arbitrarily turn on or off "at will", which can't be right. But it also can't be right to say that it's entirely outside of your control either.
I suppose I would say it's something like an "unchosen choice".
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
42m ago
Furthermore, wasting the talents of a full fledged doctor on walking into a room where a kid has a fever and runny nose and telling him he has the flu is a waste of the patient’s money and the doctor’s time.
Is it still a waste if the doctor is someone with a 120 IQ who would have got into medical school in the alternative system but ends up as a replacement-level software engineer in the US system as it is? The work of a GP in the British NHS, or in a well-run HMO where paid-for access to specialists is gatekept, does require more knowledge than an NP/PA, because you are gatekeeping access to specialists, so you need to know at least enough cardiology to know when to call the cardiologist etc. And the people doing that work don't seem to think it is meaningless - the complaints of British GPs are about pay and workload, not about the nature of the work. What it doesn't require is a gunner personality (except in so far as you need to deal with the rigours of residency) or a 130+ IQ.
FWIW, NP-equivalents in the UK are mostly people whose IQ is too high for nursing but were incorrectly sorted into it (I suspect, but don't know, that we make more errors of the "poor therefore stupid" type than the US does) and want a low-risk route to something better. My experience dealing with them (asthma care is handled by NP-equivalents, as is uncomplicated diabetes after initial diagnosis) is that they are as good as a GP within their scope of practice, as long as the understand the limits of said scope.
benny
47m ago
I've even payed this one solo twice and it was enjoyable. I think the deck building is a bit underfocused for my preference but the worker placement aspect, which I officially don't like, is fun.
For deck building I just love the designers other big game: Clank catacombs.
BurdensomeCount
Apparently "BIPOC" is a racial slur now.
49m ago
If I'm flattering myself probably 99.8, but in reality more like 99.5 or 99.4. (normalized to white western levels, compared to my own people I'm significantly higher).
One in 200 is probably how unique I think my intelligence really is. I'm quite conscientious and like learning about basically everything so I think I present as smarter than I really am because I can talk decently about a lot of things.
Back when I was a child I had delusions of being Great. Those were shattered very quickly when I began my maths degree at Oxbridge and got a chance to mingle with IMO hall of famers.
They were just at another level to me and despite initially foolishly thinking all I had to do was work harder and then I too could reach their level (note: I did not succeed, all that happened was I burnt out) eventually after getting smacked around enough by reality I learned to love my lot in life and go down a gear. I had a lot more fun too after I did this.
My dharma is not to achieve great things but at least I am at the point where I am capable of truly appreciating greatness when it is presented to me (unlike most humans) and I am thankful for that. It's much better to get into a state of resonance with the music of the universe ather than try and fight against it vainly. That way lies the path of Morgoth and we all know how that worked out...
WhateverHappenedToNorman
58m ago
For added hilarity: Gaetz is now on cameo
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
1hr ago
I feel like invoking the name of a well known characterization of this position from one of the most influential philosophers of all time, one that explicitly explains why it's vacuous, self serving, and ultimately ill fated for both its advocates and targets; if feel like that's enough to dismiss the argument actually.
Which is to say. Self serving moralism of this kind has never and will never be an argument. And in as much as it is, it can be easily refuted by opposing to it the no less vacuous statement that the weak should fear the strong.
Now when can we move past these childish power games and attempt to integrate people in a mutually beneficial compact?
Folamh3
1hr ago
Conspiratorial types often talk about whistleblowers dying in suspicious circumstances strongly suggestive of foul play, but which were officially ruled as suicides. I seem to recall that many such accusations have been levelled against the Clintons. Are there any examples of this which strike you as particularly suspicious?
sohois
1hr ago
Status is a thing outside of the UK, perhaps 2rafa was guilty of miswording it. Think about it like this, if you're introducing a potential spouse to your family, what would come off better? "He/She is a doctor" or "He/She is a nurse practitioner"? I don't think it's building consensus to state that everyone would agree on the first option.
FiveHourMarathon
Listen to Pierre
2hr ago
Sure but it's at least imaginable that every therapist will see Tim as delusional, where you're only a quick correction from "fixing" DrGPT.
justmotteingaround
2hr ago
If you feel consigned to your home after sunset, you're more likely to need psychiatric medication than moving boxes. On average, people are moving to cities, and aren't afraid of the dark. I've never known a city dwelling woman to carry any means of protection. Fertility rates have remained about 10% lower in large metro areas than rural areas for over a decade. Not being able to imagine something 10% less frequent is caused by a broken imagination.
ControlsFreak
2hr ago
I'd be very interested in comparing the average outcome of a NP with the latest AI models trained on giving medical diagnoses vs a lone doctor.
Not exactly that, but Zvi's recent post had this and this. Of course, I'd say that this is one of those areas where we probably care about some measure other than average, but it gets complicated.
2rafa
2hr ago
For some things iirc you have no choice, even in London, because the private capacity just isn’t really there and they’ll just refer you back to the private ward of an NHS hospital.
NunoSempere
2hr ago
I don't necessarily disagree, but to me the most salient fact is that there is not a clearly dominant gang that can keep the peace.
Corvos
3hr ago
Chatbots are interesting and have a lot of potential, but their dynamics can become a bit complex once you get into multi-chat conversations.
I know one person who’s deployed one as a full-fledged product. It solves a relatively simple problem and even then, babysitting it is giving him grey hairs.
Corvos
3hr ago
It’s got to the point where literally every elderly relative I have left can tell a horror story about their treatment at the hands of the NHS. I wouldn’t go to the NHS for a serious problem if you paid me.
2rafa
3hr ago
I think it’s likely Gaetz knew about the fake IDs rather than it being a deliberate attempt to gain kompromat by Greenberg, who was a consummate failson in many ways. Him and Gaetz were both from rich families and became friends over a mutual interest in crypto and guns, apparently. Gaetz also hasn’t really thrown Greenberg under the bus (even though coming out publicly and saying “the woman had an ID saying she was 19, I later found out my friend had set this up as part of a blackmail scheme”) would indeed be a fair defense not only legally as you say but also, at least to a major extent, in the court of public opinion.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
3hr ago
When I said I try to treat trans people with compassion, I meant the more pedestrian sense. I know that for such a person some things are going to be upsetting (for example, if I insist on bringing up that he is really a man and not a woman as he claims). Since I would have neither the desire to upset him nor the belief that it would profit either of us to have the discussion, I'm going to defer it as much as possible.
I have been pondering over the past few months how I, a Christian, should act towards transgender people I encounter (not that I do so that often). Mainly because the answer a lot of people give is some variation of "speak the truth in love", but I have noticed for many that is really more of a post hoc rationalization to justify what they wanted to do anyway (to tell the trans people off). I don't want to fall into that same trap, and I know my human nature makes me prone to it as well, so I have tried to think of how to address the situation. If these people are sinning (which many would argue they are), I have a duty to gently point it out. It also seems to me that I have a duty to stick to the truth and not affirm falsehoods just to be polite. But at the same time, I also have a duty to show kindness towards them (even more so because they often are people who already feel like social outcasts and who have serious emotional and mental health difficulties).
My attempt to square this circle is more or less what I said in my other post - I'm not going to preemptively bring up the topic, but if forced I won't lie either. And, if I think that the time is right (i.e. it won't push them even further away), I might even gently point out that their path isn't what God wants for them.
This is basically similar to the approach I take with gay people I encounter in life. I don't (generally) tell them that their lifestyle is sinful, because in American society it's almost impossible for them to not know that. If I were to make that the point I emphasize, most likely I'm just going to push them further away from the church and from God. So instead, I hang out with them like I would any other person. Comfort them when they are down, celebrate when they are up, etc. And I pray for the wisdom to recognize if there ever is a right moment to say "hey man, I just don't think it's a good idea to live this lifestyle that the Bible is very clear is sinful", that I'll recognize it when it comes. Maybe that's a coward's way, IDK. But it's the best I can do for right now, anyways.
I scored in the 99th percentile on verbal tests and somewhere around the 92-95th on spatial, so I’m not sure where that puts me overall, probably below you. Still, while I’ve met many much smarter people I find them generally easier to speak to and understand than people in the lower third of the population. Of course if the conversation turns to a niche special sub-field in theoretical physics or math or formal logic that I have never studied I’m not going to be able to follow, and my middling shape rotation ability means I’m not going to be able to hold my own with star traders at the poker table or when it comes to logic puzzles. But they don’t ever feel ‘foreign’ to me; I can understand the ideas even if I can’t derive them, if you want.
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