BC LIFE
Saved by @jacobhtml

"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."

 We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.
Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)
It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.
Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".
I'm always shocked when I go back to my alma mater. If you select for cocktail-party skills you by necessity select against excellence. Conversely, since we know very well that discrimination against minorities and women is real, any lab with any sense has pro-inclusion policies.
If you look for the best, you do better science. Meanwhile, if you're in a humanities department, you do better scholarship: the humanities are fundamentally about the human experience, but the selection for East-coast SLACs and Ivys is even stronger there.

More from Simon DeDeo

Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
Someone tosses a coin ten times; it comes up heads every time. What's the probability it comes up heads on the next toss? (Pretty darn high—part of @nntaleb's work is unprogramming you from your high-school rules of thumb.) Now consider the (related) Gambler's fallacy...

In this case, it's a theory about compensation: the worse one's luck is, the more likely it is to see a reversal. On the surface, it's irrational. The more bad luck you have, the more you accumulate evidence that the system is rigged.

But there's also an anthropic component. If the luck is bad enough, it starts to become inconsistent with your survival. You've accumulated evidence for correlations in the environment, but these correlations (may be) inconsistent with (people like you) being in this environment.

An example. You're in a city where everyone takes public transport. You encounter a string of bad delays. It's reasonable to conclude they'll end—otherwise people wouldn't take public transport. It's unlikely that you happened to show up right when the network collapses.

Of course, that's a bad heuristic in a casino, which relies on a constant influx of losers. But in other environments, particularly with persistent populations and no evidence for sudden changes in the underlying laws, it makes sense.
CRYPTO
Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
So—probability. Do we really need it? This has been on my mind since 2017, when I finally sat down to think through quantum theory. (/n)

One thing that’s always struck me is how *late* probability theory came in intellectual history. We had integral calculus before we had probability. And probability is insanely simple, mathematically!

I’m tempted to say that probability theory is not, in fact, Lindy. Frequentist probability is (for all the usual reasons) best understood as a heuristic. Bayesian interpretations, by contrast, take the remarkable step of tying it to mental states.

You have to work very hard to convince yourself that beliefs really are “degrees of belief in sets of events” (or whatever). It’s not natural—and I won’t rehearse the whole story about rational choice and decision theory...

So with those critiques in the back of my mind, when I read David Wallace’s decision-theoretic account of the Born Rule I was rather primed to say, hey, so what? Meaning...
PROBABILITY
Advertisement
Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".


The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?
ALL
Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
So, today, for the first time in 25 (!) years of Apple, I downgraded. From the 2016 MacBook Pro to my 2013, which I had kept in a drawer...


It was pretty simple to do—Apple Time Machine backups let me do it with one click.

That first tweet captures, in two pictures, how badly Apple has “lost the plot” (to quote @wylieprof). On the right is the Apple MagSafe adapter, from 2013. On the left, what I had “upgraded” to.

Thanks, Apple! I really was nostalgic for worrying about yanking my computer off the table.

Oh and I really appreciated not knowing if my computer was charging. What was great was the little whoop sound you used, so that the speaker before me could be informed I was charging my laptop.
TECH
Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
On Bayesianism, the Many Worlds Interpretation, and personal identity.

Some thoughts worked out in a letter to a friend, which is the kind of thing you do when off Twitter for a glorious week. (🧵)

“Chance is ignorance”—the Bayesian story; all probabilities represent states of mind, not states of the world. One *could* put (some) chances “in the world”, but let’s take Occam’s Razor seriously...

That the probability of a fair coin coming up heads is 50% simply means that marginalizing (tracing, as the physicists say) over the hidden facts leaves you, nearly, maximally ignorant of the outcome.

Quantum uncertainty (access below!) poses an apparent challenge to this story. There seems to be nothing to be ignorant about when it comes to (say) electron spin—there is nothing “inside” the

The electron is a simple object, in other words. So where does the uncertainty come from? One could follow David Wallace’s wonderful interpretation in terms of chaotic dynamics and decoherence, but let’s see if we can take another route...
DATA SCIENCE

More from Life

Peter McCormack [Jan/3\u279e\u20bf \U0001f511\u220e]
Peter McCormack [Jan/3...
@PeterMcCormack
1/ So here is a thread on how I turned $32,000 into $1.2m and back to pretty much zero (once taxes are paid).

Just note, I am not bitter or salty in any way at all, the last 2 years have been an amazing ride - travelled the world, been wealthy, been poor.

2/ Dec '16, my advertising agency folded, I had a little bit of money left and I put $32k into Bitcoin and Ether. As it started to go up I diversified into everything, Monero, Dash, this that, any crap - even Ripplecoin. Everything just kept going up.

3/ By March I think I had around $300k and $500k by the summer. I used to take 25% out but towards the end of the summer I got greedy and put it all back in and by December it was $1.2m.

4/ Thinking I was an absolute genius I decided to start a bunch of businesses. As silly as it sounds I had this goal of making $5m as I wanted to buy Bedford Town Football Club and get them in the league, and as Crypto was going up forever I needed 6 months.

5/ So:
- Trading (income 1)
- Podcast (income 2)
- Mining (income 3)
- Mining pool (income 4)
- Consulting (income 5)

Yes - all of the above as a one-man army :)
LIFE
Robert Frank
Robert Frank
@Robertfrank615
Years ago I would troll CrossFit/Planet Fitness until I got bored with it and created the “Car Rage” guy. People would say, stop screaming in your car and go back to trolling CrossFit. I didn’t listen.

After screaming in my car for 3 years I started doing other shit......

.... like MeatHead Minutes, Hater Dance Videos, Macho Man impersonations, Podcasting, exposing the hypocrisy of BLM, doing Live Streams nightly on YouTube, etc. People would say, stop doing this other shit and go back to screaming in your car. I didn’t listen....

.... my FB page has grown over 176k new followers since my first George Floyd video in June and all I really post about is current event shit. I posted a “Car Rage” video yesterday and people are saying, stop screaming in your car and go back to talking about politics......

.... moral of this cool story bro is the BEST thing I ever did, is not listen to what anyone told me to do. Be you.
LIFE
Advertisement
dopaminedream
dopaminedream
@dopaminendreams
Convo between @tferriss & @naval on modern loneliness:

Naval: In India there's this concept of the extended family where you basically live with your tribe at all times, so when we were young, at our grandmother's place with my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, my grandparents,

everyone was there, and it was a warm night so we went out to the backyard and put all these comforters and these little cots out and everyone would sleep in this giant pile with fifteen people underneath the stars...

it was amazing...so there's two things that were great about it: the noise level didn't bother you, if someone's foot was in your face it didn't bother you. When it's family and you're young it all just works and you feel very safe and very happy.

Another thing is that it reinforces how important the tribe is. Modern society gives us incredible flexibility in that we can get away from our crazy family members, we're not destined to die where we are born or to do what our parents did. So we have incredible freedom.

But coming with it is this tremendous loneliness that we try to cover up either through drugs, alcohol, partying, even trying to find a mission like putting people on mars. But the reality is that a lot of that loneliness comes from being disconnected from growing up in your
LIFE
Daniella Mestyanek Young
Daniella Mestyanek You...
@daniellamyoung
Multiple friends have been reaching out lately, asking some version of "how did people get radicalized to such an extent?" and, more importantly, "why not us? why was I immune." As someone who's extremism in person, pretty much my whole life, here are some thoughts:

These are EXACTLY the questions we should all be asking ourselves right now. Studies have shown that no 'type' of person is immune to radicalization or falling prey to cults or cult-think. There's no such thing as being "too smart" for that.

So, for starters, many of us were just in the right place and the right time, and didn't get radicalized. That is an important realization. It's important because as we begin to try to de-radicalize our friends, family and "good people" who fell prey to white supremacist thought

We need to start with compassion, or they will just shut down. Understanding deeply that it can happen to anyone is a big part of that. Now let's talk those who were primed for it, more likely to fall into conspiracy thinking and the Q cult.

In this case, those white people who see the movement towards equality for everyone as white people losing (which is true in a way, we have to give back much of the privilege we obtained from those who took it by force or manipulation) were much more susceptible to the rhetoric.
LIFE
\U0001f531Lady Olivia Rose\U0001f531
🔱Lady Olivia Rose🔱...
@ladyoliviarose
@epballou @AutSciPerson I have to say, all this info about sound sensitivity is making me emotional. I've never been able to talk about this. I can work around airplanes, no protection (did it for years), but if I'm caught near a city fireworks show I lose my mind. The fear and pain is indescribable.

I tell people one of my biggest fears is balloons, and obviously it's funny to imagine, until they see me have a psychotic break when one pops. I lose myself and it's terrifying. I don't know what it is about loud sudden sounds that hurts me, and it appears I'll never know.

I dread the 4th of July every year. My birthday parties were often held then. Recently I discovered if I wear earbuds and blast music with audio PPE on top I can stand to be outside. That first show where I could keep my hands free I held my best friend's hand and felt wondrous.

I'm crying just remembering discovering I could be happy underneath fireworks. I'll never understand why my parents didn't think to ever try to help me, and instead made me suffer for so long, feeling absolutely alone with this. Only once do I remember my mother comforting me.

It was a particularly bad year, a lot of college kids I think renting nearby camps, and I hid under my bed for hours. My mother came up and laid on my bed, dangled her hand down to show she was there, and sang to me. I was 15.
LIFE

You May Also Like

Art Historian* \U0001fa94
Art Historian* 🪔...
@Arthistorian18
The last Hindu king of Pakistan.

The name Amarkot is known to all in our subcontinent as the birthplace of Emperor Akbar. When Humayun was fleeing from Sher Shah, Rana Prasad of Amarkot sheltered him and this is where Emperor Akbar was born.

#Thread
1/19
@talesofBharat


They have always maintained friendly relations with the rulers. The Mughal court and the Rana of Amarkot had special respect because Emperor Akbar was born in the shelter of Amarkot Raj. They did not even have to attend court regularly.

2/19

Dara Shikohar provided Rana supplies to Amarkot during his expedition to Kandahar.
But another reason why the name of this Amarkot is inextricably linked with the history of the subcontinent is the partition of the country.
Sodha is the family name of the Maharajas of..

3/19

Amarkot,They were originally known as Sodha Rajputs. Despite possessing a very small kingdom, he was far ahead in terms of wealth and honor. During the British rule, Rana Ratan Singh led the anti-British movement in Sindh. In 1753, the British occupied the state of Amarkot,
4/19

which was his and his ancestral home, and hanged Rana Ratan Singh on a high platform on the walls of Amarkot fort. It hangs in front for a few days. Even today, a folk song called "Mor tor tilaya rana" is very popular in Sindhi language.
After the capture of the fort by the
5/19
ALL
MaMaMia \U0001f1ec\U0001f1f7\U0001f1e8\U0001f1fe\U0001f1e6\U0001f1f2 SupportGreekProducts
MaMaMia 🇬🇷🇨🇾🇦🇲 Support...
@MaMaMia73189983
Following @BAUDEGS I have experienced hateful and propagandist tweets time after time. I have been shocked that an academic community would be so reckless with their publications. So I did some research.
The question is:
Is this an official account for Bahcesehir Uni (Bau)?


Bahcesehir Uni, BAU has an official website https://t.co/ztzX6uj34V which links to their social media, leading to their Twitter account @Bahcesehir

BAU’s official Twitter account


BAU has many departments, which all have separate accounts. Nowhere among them did I find @BAUDEGS
@BAUOrganization @ApplyBAU @adayBAU @BAUAlumniCenter @bahcesehirfbe @baufens @CyprusBau @bauiisbf @bauglobal @bahcesehirebe @BAUintBatumi @BAUiletisim @BAUSaglik @bauebf @TIPBAU

Nowhere among them was @BAUDEGS to find
BUSINESS
Advertisement
foone
foone
@Foone
You want to know something about how bullshit insane our brains are?
OK, so there's a physical problem with our eyes: We move them in short fast bursts called "saccades", right? very quick, synchronized movements.
The only problem is: they go all blurry and useless during this

having your vision turn into a blurry mess every time you move your eyes is obviously not a good idea, so our brains hide it from us. Now, imagine you're an engineer and you have this problem.

You've got some obvious solutions you could do.
1. make the vision go black during movement. (Some VR games do this!)
2. just keep showing the last thing we saw prior to movement

both are good options with different downsides, but OH NO. this is assuming everything makes sense and is chronological and (regular) logical.
Your brain does neither of these options, really.

first, it basically puts your visual system on "pause". You're not seeing blackness or even nothing, you're just not seeing period.
then when you finish your saccade, it shows you what you now see at the new position. and then it pretends it can time travel.
ALL
Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
SRI KANTESH HANUMANTHA, KADARAMANDALAGI (KAR)
#bharatmandir

KANTESHA means Prabhu full of brightness.
Here, Sri Hanuman appears with a front face and sparkling eyes. Earlier, the village was also called KANTESHPURI on the name of Kantesha Hanuman.


Several thousands of years ago, Hanuman lived in this village. He once saw the Sun and mistaking it to be a fruit, began flying towards it. Since then, this village came to be known as Kadara Man Dalagi. (Kadar means rays, mandala is cluster of rays).


It is believed that King Janmejaya had set up the shrine to get rid of his difficulties.
There is a small pond on the right side of the kshetram where Teppotsava (Float festival) is celebrated.

Kanaka Dasa has praised Sri Kantesha in his various poetic compositions.


Kanaka Dasa was the first devotee to popularize the power of Kantesha. It is said that once Kanaka Dasa was deeply wounded in a battle. To seek blessings, he visited Tirupati but Sri Venkatesha appeared in his dream and advised him to see Kantesha first before seeing him.
ALL
Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
Do you know?

Multiverse is mentioned in several of Hindu Scriptures.

In 1927 came a theory named 'Big Bang' which was a scientific effort to provide some explanation about how our Universe came into existence. It suggested that Universe started as a tiny, hot and dense...


...something that expanded rapidly from the singularity with a big explosion or Big Bang from which formed the galaxies, stars and the rest of the Universe.
However, the science in our Vedas explained these concepts since millennia. Rig Veda mentions Hiranyagarbha and Brahmanda..

...Visphotak which talks about a similar theory.
The concept of Parallel universes may be novel to the modern scientists but it rests very comfortably in ancient Hindu Cosmology. The Puranas are replete with descriptions of many worlds whose inhabitants are ruled by kings in...


...the human plane and Gods in a higher plane. The many Gods in turn belong to many different worlds and planes of existence. At the highest level of hierarchy are the trinity namely Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesha, ruling the divine Kingdoms. Brahma is the creator who dreams...


...the Universe into being, which is maintained by Vishnu. What Humans perceive as reality is in fact the dream of Brahma, misled by matter. Brahman( not to be confused with Brahma) is the ground of all reality & existence. Brahman is uncreated,external, infinite & all-embracing.
ALL