Newcomb's problem is a thought experiment where you're presented with two boxes, and the option to take one or both. One box is transparent and always contains $1000. The second is a mystery box.

Before making the choice, a supercomputer (or team of psychologists, etc) predicted whether you would take one box or both. If it predicted you would take both, the mystery box is empty. If it predicted you'd take just the mystery box, then it contains $1,000,000. The predictor rarely makes mistakes.

This problem tends to split people 50-50 with each side thinking the answer is obvious.

An argument for two-boxing is that, once the prediction has been made, your choice no longer influences the outcome. The mystery box already has whatever it has, so there's no reason to leave the $1000 sitting there.

An argument for one-boxing is that, statistically, one-boxers tend to walk away with more money than two-boxers. It's unlikely that the computer guessed wrong, so rather than hoping that you can be the rare case where it did, you should assume that whatever you choose is what it predicted.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/41758664

Obviously it's really about oil but this is a shitpost.

FFIV's great opening

Obviously it's really about oil but this is a shitpost.

FFIV's great opening

Original

I'm aware that in many cases the answer is simply, "they don't," as many people don't seem to have the historical or theoretical curiosity to investigate it. However, I genuinely want to encourage more cerebral discussion around here, so I'll give a brief rundown.

The Second International was a big federation of socialists/social democrats with lots of different perspectives, the largest being Germany's SDP (which still exists today). The aim was to foster international cooperation and solidarity, and to promote the interests of the common people, including preventing the outbreak of a major European war. The Basel Manifesto, passed by a unanimous vote at the International Socialist Congress in 1912, stated:

If a war threatens to break out, it is the duty of the working classes and their parliamentary representatives in the countries involved supported by the coordinating activity of the International Socialist Bureau to exert every effort in order to prevent the outbreak of war by the means they consider most effective, which naturally vary according to the sharpening of the class struggle and the sharpening of the general political situation.

In case war should break out anyway it is their duty to intervene in favor of its speedy termination and with all their powers to utilize the economic and political crisis created by the war to arouse the people and thereby to hasten the downfall of capitalist class rule.

The Second International fell apart when the SDP voted in favor of issuing war credits, indicating support for German entry into WWI, with other social democratic parties following suit. This made any hope of international cooperation impossible. Although everyone said that they opposed the war in principle, they all found reasons to rally around their respective flags and point fingers at each other for who's side was more responsible.

Lenin was an exception to this trend and not only strongly opposed Russian participation in the war, but even went so far as to explictly call for Russia's defeat. The Leninist perspective is that the social democratic parties betrayed the international socialist movement and failed to oppose the war because had become filled with opportunists, people who were willing to go against the interests of the people out of fear of political persecution (or, in the interest of advancing their own careers) and that, from this, we can see that attempts to work within the system to achieve reform are vulnerable such mechanisms of subversion.

The breakdown of the Second International was not just a disagreement between social democrats and Leninists, but also between social democrats of different countries. When their respective countries turned against each other, and the range of acceptable opinions narrowed to the point that opposing the war would be seen as treasonous, they all found reasons to start fighting each other, in a largely pointless war on an unprecedented scale.

Is it really possible to build any sort of international coalition if a party limits itself to the range of opinions that are permissible within a capitalist system? And are modern social democrats even interested in that sort of internationalism anymore?

The government targeted disabled people from some of the poorest communities in the country, who McNamara referred to as, "the subterranean poor."

Many of those drafted were illiterate, they had to be taught to tie their shoes, and they didn't know things like who the president was, even as they were being sent to kill and die on his orders for an imperialist war, for reasons they could not understand.

A book called McNamera's Folly records some stories of those recruited in the program. One thought a nickel was worth more than a dime, because it was bigger. One of them failed to attend training and was sentenced to four years of labor in prison, and the sergeant asked if anyone "wanted to join them in the stockade." Another conscript didn't know what the word "stockade" meant and thought it meant going home, so he said yes - he received the same sentence.

If you can believe it, this was actually sold to the public as a "progressive" program, as part of Johnson's "War on Poverty." The claim was that this would be a way to help the conscripts learn useful skills. in reality, a study by the DoD itself found:

Comparisons between Project 100,000 participants and their non-veteran peers showed that, in terms of employment status, educational achievement, and income, non-veterans appeared better off. Veterans were more likely to be unemployed and to have a significantly lower level of education. Income differences ranged from $5,000 [to] $7,000 in favor of non-veterans. Veterans were more likely to have been divorced.

Obviously.

We all know the meme, but most of the time it's referenced about someone shitty saying something you already agree with. What I wanna hear about is a time when someone who you broadly disagree with actually gave you some kind of new insight about something - even if you didn't end up coming around to their point of view. Maybe they gave you a piece of a puzzle that you were missing, but then you built on that in a completely different way.

Doesn't have to actually be "the worst person you know," interpret it however you like.

I see a lot of people recently calling Chamberlain "spineless" and saying that he "caved" to Hitler or "sold out Czechoslavakia in exchange for empty promises." But this is really problematic because you're not thinking of all the people who would've gotten hurt if this deal didn't go through. I mean, nobody wants a repeat of the Great War. And look, I hate Hitler as much as anyone, but he's given us his word that he'll be content with taking only the Sudetenla-

Sorry, what's that? Oh, I see.

As I was saying, Mr. Hitler has given us his word that he'll be content with just annexing all of Czechoslavakia.

What was he supposed to do? Throw Europe into a major conflict, just because some fascist seizes power, removes any semblance of democracy, and starts terrorizing minorities?

Look, at the end of the day, capitalist or fascist, we might not see eye to eye on every little detail but it's important to be the bigger person and reach across the aisle and give them every chance to stop being belligerent.

I mean, after all, if we can't work together, then who's going to kill all the leftists?