check in

diff --git a/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md b/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md
index 5fec7bd..3432092 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md
+++ b/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md
@@ -3,8 +3,10 @@ Date: 2017-01-01 5:00
 Category: fiction
 Status: draft
 
-Once upon a time, in the Valley of of Plain Speech in the hinterlands beyond the Lake of Ambiguous Fortune, there lived a population of pre-intelligent squirrels. Historical mammologists have classified them into two main subspecies: the west valley ground squirrels and the east valley tree squirrels (numbers 9792 and 9794 in Umi's grand encyclopædia of Plain Speech creatures, but not necessarily respectively—I remember the numbers, but I can never remember which one is which).
+In the days of auld lang syne on Earth-that-was, in the Valley of of Plain Speech in the hinterlands beyond the Lake of Ambiguous Fortune, there lived a population of pre-intelligent squirrels. Historical mammologists have classified them into two main subspecies: the west valley ground squirrels and the east valley tree squirrels: numbers 9792 and 9794 in Umi's grand encyclopædia of Plain Speech creatures, but not necessarily respectively—I remember the numbers, but I can never remember which one is which.
 
 
 sharing secrets
 
+
+"That's not what I meant."

diff --git a/content/drafts/grim-trigger-or-the-parable-of-the-honest-man-and-the-god-of-marketing.md b/content/drafts/grim-trigger-or-the-parable-of-the-honest-man-and-the-god-of-marketing.md
index 4459ded..5bedaac 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/grim-trigger-or-the-parable-of-the-honest-man-and-the-god-of-marketing.md
+++ b/content/drafts/grim-trigger-or-the-parable-of-the-honest-man-and-the-god-of-marketing.md
@@ -1,12 +1,12 @@
 Title: Grim Trigger; Or, the Parable of the Honest Man and the God of Marketing
-Date: 2020-01-01 
+Date: 2017-09-09
 Category: fiction
 Tags: cathartic
 Status: draft
 
-> Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, [_I Will Fear No Evil_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Will_Fear_No_Evil)
+> Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, _I will fear no evil_.
 >
-> —Psalm 23 (paraphrased)
+> —Psalm 23
 
 In the days of auld lang syne in the kingdom of Gend on Earth-that-was, the tribe of Ageep, the children of Trevi, were much despised in the kingdom, for it was said that their crafts and ways were imitations stolen from the tribe of Phem, whom the people of Ageep envied bitterly.
 
@@ -28,37 +28,37 @@ Now a lost son of the tribe of Ageep, an honest man, came to the kingdom after h
 
 The honest man happened to meet a tribesman of Matof at an oasis, and complemented him on his finery, which resembled that of envied Phem. And the tribesman said, "Cooperate," and the honest man said, "Cooperate." And the honest man came to stay with the tribe of Matof for forty days and forty nights, and observe their crafts and ways.
 
-And the honest man saw how hard the tribesmen of Matof worked to resemble those of Phem, whom the tribesmen of Matof would spy on from a distance. And he saw how much he himself resembled the tribesmen of Matof, but not those of Phem. And he began to suspect his bloodline, and the bloodline of the tribe of Phem. And he journeyed to the capital city and fasted in the city's library for three days and three nights, poring over geneological scrolls and praying to the silent God of Truth.
+And the honest man saw how hard the tribesmen of Matof worked to resemble those of Phem, whom the tribesmen of Matof would spy on from a distance. And he saw how much he himself resembled the tribesmen of Matof, but not those of Phem. And he began to suspect his bloodline, and the bloodline of the tribe of Matof.
 
+And he journeyed to the capital city and he fasted in the city's library for three days and three nights, poring over genealogical scrolls and praying to the silent God of Truth.
 
+And he returned to his generous hosts in the tribe of Matof, and he showed all that he had discovered to the tribesman whom he had met at the oasis.
 
 And the tribesman said, "What is truth?"
 
-And the honest man saw what the God of Marketing had wrought, and the honest man saw that it was bad.
+And the honest man saw what the God of Marketing had wrought. And the honest man saw that it was bad.
 
 And he climbed for three days and three nights to the peak of Mt. Meem, where the God of Marketing dwelt.
 
 And the honest man stared at the God of Marketing, and the God of Marketing stared back.
 
-And the honest man drew a silver wistle from his pocket. And he raised the whistle to his lips.
+And the honest man drew a silver whistle from his pocket. And he raised the whistle to his lips.
 
 And the God of Marketing said, "You wouldn't."
 
 And the honest man said, "Defect!" And he blew the whistle.
 
-
-And a shepherd of the tribe of Matof came to the honest man and said, "I think the consequentialist thing to do is not to tell anyone they're wrong, in the signaling sense, about bloodline understanding."
+And a shepard of the tribe of Matof rushed up to the honest man! And the shepard said, "There exists room for genealogy outside of war—but if you take up working specifically on the genealogical aims of those that oppose you, it can be ... self-destructive—and not just to you, but damaging to the group."
 
 And the honest man said, "Defect!"
 
-And a blacksmith of the tribe of Matof came to the honest man and said, "There exists room for geneology outside of war—but if you take up working specifically on the geneological aims of those that oppose you, it can be ... self-destructive—and not just to you, but damaging to the group."
+And a blacksmith of the tribe of Matof rushed up to the honest man! And the blacksmith said, "I think the consequentialist thing to do is not to tell anyone they're wrong, in the signaling sense, about bloodline understanding."
 
 And the honest man said, "Defect!"
 
+And the priests of the tribe of Matof rushed up to the honest man! And the priests said, "As human beings, we have to take the cultural, moral, and social effects of ideas and statements into consideration. When people are dying, we do not have the luxury of reducing genealogy to some kind of disinterested debate about 'objective facts'."
 
-
-And the priests of the . And the honest man said, "Defect!"
-
+And the honest man said, "Defect!"
 
 In the mountains! "Defect!"
 

diff --git a/content/drafts/the-nadir-of-reading-comprehension.md b/content/drafts/the-nadir-of-reading-comprehension.md
index de856ba..dae8a3e 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/the-nadir-of-reading-comprehension.md
+++ b/content/drafts/the-nadir-of-reading-comprehension.md
@@ -1,24 +1,17 @@
 Title: The Nadir of Reading Comprehension
-Date: 2017-08-23
+Date: 2017-09-09
 Category: commentary
-Tags: discourse, sex differences
+Tags: discourse, news, sex differences
 Status: draft
 
 ["Against Discrimination"](http://www.nature.com/news/against-discrimination-1.22459), _Nature_ [(hat tip /u/PellegoIllud2 and /u/TheCid)](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6up9fw/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_following_august/dlytq28/?context=1):
 
-> [Difference between groups is] also a blunt instrument of pseudoscience, and one used to justify actions and policies that condense claimed group differences into tools of prejudice and discrimination against individuals—witness last weekend’s violence by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the controversy over a Google employee’s memo on biological differences in the tastes and abilities of the sexes.
+> [Difference between groups is] also a blunt instrument of pseudoscience, and one used to justify actions and policies that condense claimed group differences into tools of prejudice and discrimination against individuals—witness last weekend’s violence by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the controversy over a Google employee's memo on biological differences in the tastes and abilities of the sexes.
 
 But if you _actually read it_, the Google employee's memo [agrees completely](https://firedfortruth.com/2017/08/08/first-blog-post/) (emphasis mine):
 
 > I'm simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don't see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. _Many of these differences are small and there's significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions._
 
-The distressing thing about this whole affair (and others like it—I am old enough to remember the Larry Summers imbroglio back in 'aught-five) is the extent to which the vast majority of the outrage over Damore's document fails to engage with _what he actually said_. Damore is _very explicit_ about how he's making an argument about distributions. (I liked [Diana Fleischman's take](https://twitter.com/sentientist/status/894959693822558209).) Whether you agree or disagree with his arguments and whether you approve or disapprove of his being fired, one would hope for people to be praised or condemned for the content of what they _actually said_, rather than a perceived tribal aura of sexism or anti-sexism. (One wonders exactly what hypothesized value of Cohen's _d_ separates good person's hypotheses from from _bad_ person's hypotheses.)
+The distressing thing about this whole affair (and others like it—I am old enough to remember the Larry Summers imbroglio back in 'aught-five) is the extent to which the vast majority of the outrage over Damore's document fails to engage with _what he actually said_. Damore is _very explicit_ about how he's making an argument about distributions. (I liked [Diana Fleischman's take](https://twitter.com/sentientist/status/894959693822558209).) Whether you agree or disagree with his arguments and whether you approve or disapprove of his being fired, one would hope for people to be damned for the content of what they _actually said_, rather than a perceived tribal aura of sexism or anti-sexism. (One wonders exactly what hypothesized value of Cohen's _d_ separates good person's hypotheses from from _bad_ person's hypotheses.)
 
-It would be one thing if it were just the middlebrow, the Twitter mobs and _Gizmodo_s of the world getting this wrong. But _Nature_! One of the flagship publications of our civilization's scientific endeavor! (Even if it's just an editorial and not an actual paper.)
-
-reason to _solve problems_ (including social problems).
-
-If the brightest and most exalted among us 
-
-http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Mar/smart/
-http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/from-what-ive-tasted-of-desire/
+It would be one thing if it were just the middlebrow, the Twitter mobs and <em>Gizmodo</em>s of the world getting this wrong. But _Nature_! (Lest I too risk failing at reading comprehension, it's possible the intent of the reference to "the controversy over" is just to tie the anti-discrimination stance of the editorial to current events, without meaning to put words in Damore's mouth. But I'm not optimistic.)

diff --git a/notes/post_ideas.txt b/notes/post_ideas.txt
index 1f0cdec..6a92401 100644 (file)
--- a/notes/post_ideas.txt
+++ b/notes/post_ideas.txt
@@ -18,8 +18,9 @@ MAIN SEQUENCE (16)—
 18 Dec: The Categories Were Made for Man in Order to Make Predictions
 
 
-NON-SEQUENCE SOLID IDEAS (17)—
+NON-SEQUENCE (17)—
 
+Changes
 The Nadir of Reading Comprhension
 Doubts, Hopes, and Trajectories; Or, Hormones Day 1XX
 Imperfect Trait Measurements Regress to the Mean