I still think that this represents a bias towards a military-geopolitical interpretation of history that’s not wholly sustainable, in spite of its appeal. In the Russian Empire case, I’m quite certain that that’s a popular myth, because I know that it is certainly the case that when the first railway infrastructures were being built, the political powers, administrators, and engineers responsible were as much influenced by technological and physical geographical imperatives as they were by geopolitical. The Russian Empire’s decision to use what would become the Russian gauge was multi-factoral - indeed looking it up, it appears that they were persuaded by Brunel’s own preference for a wide gauge, which was famously thwarted in the early development of the British railways.

I’d advise that the SneerClub is actually a negroni with extra-proof (70-90% alcohol) rum replacing the Campari, which is instead drizzled from the bottom of a nearly empty bottle over the top. And it’s taken like a shot, beginning when you log on and continuing at your own pace until either you pass out or the internet does.

Speaking as apparently one of the few people online who still has to look it up in order to find out a reference is to Avatar and not some Vietnamese proverb from the ‘60s…but I repeat myself

I want to add William H. Tucker’s posthumous “The Bell Curve in Perspective”, which came out I think right at the end of last year. It’s a short, thorough, assessment both of the history of The Bell Curve book itself and what has happened since.

Even the first chapter is just mindblowingly terse in brutally unpacking how (a) it was written by racists, (b) for racist ends, (c) Murray lied and lied afterwards in pretending that ‘only a tiny part of the book was about race’ or whatever

I don’t have the source article, my full title is all one quote from the latest issue of the London Review of Books. But I’ve seen it before multiple times - it’s out there and findable

I’m a communist, I’ll criticise who I want about what they do wherever

While I agree with you about the economics, I’m trying to point out that physical reality also has constraints other than economic, many of them unknown, some of them discovered in the process of development.

Bird’s flight isn’t magic, or unknowable, or non reproduceable.

No. But it is unreproducible if you already have arms with shoulders, elbows, hands, and five stubby fingers. Human and bird bodies are sufficiently different that there are no close approximations for humans which will reproduce flight for humans as it is found in birds.

If it was, we’d have no sense of awe at learning about it, studying it. Imagine if human like behavior of intelligence was completely unknowable. How would we go about teaching things? Communicating at all? Sharing our experiences?

To me, this is a series of non-sequiturs. It’s obvious that you can have awe for something without having a genuine understanding of it, but that’s beside the point. Similarly, the kind of knowledge required for humans to communicate with one another isn’t relevant - what we want to know is the kind of knowledge which goes into the physical task of making artificial humans. And you ride roughshod of one of the most interesting aspects of the human experience: human communication and mutual understanding is possible across vast gulfs of the unknown, which is itself rather beautiful.

But again I can’t work out what makes that particularly relevant. I think there’s a clue here though:

…but I also take care not to put humanity, or intelligence in a broad sense, in some special magical untouchable place, either.

Right, but this would be a common (and mistaken) move some people make which I’m not making, and which I have no desire to make. You’re replying here to people who affirm either an implicit or explicit dualism about human consciousness, and say that the answers to some questions are just out of reach forever. I’m not one of those people, and I’m referring specifically to the words I used to make the point that I made, namely that there exist real physical constraints repeatedly approached and arrived at in the history of technology which demonstrate that not every problem has an ideal solution (and I refer you back to my earlier point about aircraft to show how that cashes out in practice).

There are no known problems that can’t theoritically be solved, in a sort of pedantic “in a closed system information always converges” sort of way

Perhaps. The problem of human flight was “solved” by the development of large, unwieldy machines driven by (relatively speaking, cf. pigeons) highly inefficient propulsion systems which are very good at covering long distances, oceans, and rough terrain quickly - the aim was Daedalus and Icarus, but aerospace companies are fortunate that the flying machine turned out to have advantages in strictly commercial and military use. It’s completely undecided physically whether there is a solution to the problem of building human-like intelligence which does a comparable job to having sex, even with complete information about the workings of humans.

I’ve just dipped in and out of it all day - I can’t look away! It’s better than a car crash: you can slow down multiple times

“…trying to head off an argument by bringing their estimates down as low as possible” - you’ve got it. We’re done. You can stop now.

I’m just cackling at whatever this guy thinks ketamine does when you’re already on speed playing jump rope with the traffic, other than “you will lie face down on the pavement for half an hour and conduct a week long interview with satan between the gap in your eyelids”

I would hardly consider myself in favour of “the mainstream”, but I also know that what counts as “mainstream” is irreducibly dependent on your point of view. As far as I’m concerned a great deal of anti-“mainstream” opinion is reactionary and/or stupid, so anti-“mainstream” only by default. A stopped clock, famously, tells the truth twice a day - whether its on CBS or LessWrong. If you want the “truth” I recommend narrowing your focus until you start making meaningful distinctions. I hope that as comfortably vitiates your point as it should.

Next time it would be polite to answer the fucking question.