Indeed, twin studies form the strongest leg of Bryan Caplan's argument in support of the signalling hypothesis in his book The Case Against Education, which I highly recommend anyone trying to refute it read and try to debunk. If you want an itemized list of citations this is where I'd start.
Hey, it's a free country. :) When I imagine other hypothetical books titled things like The Case Against Capitalism, The Case Against Monogamy, or The Case Against Atheism, though, I note that I don't get an "insider propaganda" vibe from any of them, even though I would probably strongly dislike what they have to say.
Dr. Caplan in fact does cover this point in TCAE, of course. He comes to conclude that only about 70-80% of the effect of education is attributable to signalling. A solid 20-30% still looks like good old fashioned human capital improvement, and it is largely concentrated around the basic primary education skills of reading and arithmetic. (He even has the spreadsheets where he calculated all this out online, and he has talked before about how sad he is nobody has ever tried to fiddle with the actual numbers.)
Probably not actual "2a+4=12, how much is a?" style basic algebra, though. In the United States, which is about lower-middle of the pack on PISA, about 1 in 3 adults would struggle with that level of algebra according to the PIIAC, to say nothing of e.g. the actual compound interest equation, even if the rough idea makes sense.
That's not "most people", but it's definitely "a plurality" of people. And yet life is pretty great!
My last point is that life in America is pretty great. You don't deny this, to your credit. But I don't see why that would link to "American democracy is threatened". If anything I would expect the opposite to be true.
"There's a threat to American democracy" seems like a strong claim to me by itself, let alone "There's a threat to American democracy partially because of its education quality." But, I'm an American myself, and I don't want to play inside baseball with how likely that actually seems to me.
Let's instead take Germany, where you yourself seem to be located. Germany has PISA scores quite close to the US's own, maybe slightly above or below depending on which recent year you look at.
If poor education leads to collapse, and if the two countries are about equal in their poor education, you should then be willing to accept, say, a 1 to 20 bet that German democracy will itself self-immolate in, say, 15 years. But, if poor education doesn't justify even a 5% risk of this happening in Germany, then I don't see why I would think it's a relevant factor in predicting the collapse of democracy in another country with a much longer uninterrupted democratic tradition.
(You could of course argue "No, comparisons based on PISA scores are misleading, actually there's robust pro-totalitarian brainwashing happening in US high schools that doesn't happen in German gymnasiums", or something, but (a) that's a much more precise claim than merely "US education is bad", (b) that seems really unlikely to me given I've never actually met or had an openly pro-fascist teacher at any level, and (c) even if it was true, the signalling hypothesis would still suggest any attempts at this just wouldn't matter very much by the time these kids are 25 or so.)
There's nothing mean-spirited about asking people to put rough numbers to their beliefs, even approximately. But I do think most people would be genuinely surprised to hear you think there's over a 5% chance Germany the Western democracy won't exist in a generation. If it does happen I need to remember to revisit a lot of things about how I myself understand the world.
I for one like books which are willing to explicitly make a controversial point; it makes for much more interesting reading, even if I remain in disagreement throughout.
With all else being equal, I'm willing to believe that more intelligence would lead to greater income. But if you're claiming that IQ is the sole/main predictor for income that'd be a hard [citation needed] in my opinion.
In fact I recall a study (I saw on HN I believe) that showed that IQ is only correlated up to a certain value (not very high, I.e. Lower upper middle class IIRC) but then becomes quite uncorrelated. This certainly matches my anecdotal evidence that most of the rich kids during school were not very smart. The smart ones were typically the kids from academic middle class households.
That amendment has never been tested in the grounds that the Trump administration is.
It certainly wasn’t intended for the currently used purpose and will very much come down to “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” which anyone short of the best legal scholars in our country aren’t qualified to speak to.
The text of the amendment is as clear as day: anyone born in the US is automatically a citizen, with only a few, well defined exceptions (children of foreign diplomats).
The Supreme Court already ruled on the meaning of the amendment in 1898, so there's no possible ambiguity left.
Trump's executive order is just blatantly illegal.
Ah, but it's not so simple. Here's part of the majority opinion:
"Chinese persons, born out of the United States, remaining subjects of the Emperor of China, and not having become citizens of the United States, are entitled to the protection of, and owe allegiance to, the United States so long as they are permitted by the United States to reside here, and are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the same sense as all other aliens residing in the United States. . . ."
You'll note the "so long as they are permitted by the United States to reside here" part. His parents weren't illegal immigrants. They were 'legally domiciled,' which was a thing at the time. Again, from my understanding it gets more in the weeds than that.
You're confusing the facts of the case with the opinion.
The section you're quoting is a recapitulation of the facts of the case, as agreed upon by all parties. The majority then lays out its legal theory and applies them to the facts, not all of which are relevant to the decision.
The court argues at length that under English Common Law (which is also the law of the United States), anyone born in the country is automatically a citizen, with only two exceptions:
1. Children of accredited diplomats.
2. Children born to hostile foreign armies in belligerent occupation of some part of the country's territory. For example, it cites the case of a child born to the wife of a British soldier during the British occupation of Charleston, during the revolution. That child is not an American citizen.
The court only recognizes one further exception to birthright citizenship:
3. Children born under the jurisdiction of Native American tribes. The court says that the existence of quasi-independent native tribes is a special circumstance with no precedent in English Common Law.
The court specifically argues that English Common Law and the text of the 14th Amendment allow no other exceptions. The concept of "legal domicile" is not relevant to citizenship, and the court specifically states that even the children of sojourners, businesspeople and others only temporarily in the country become citizens at birth. The only exceptions are those I listed above.
The point is that you have to actually read the majority opinion, which argues all of these points at great length.
What Trump is trying to push through, by executive order, would be a massive revision of American law, going back to the Constitution and even before the revolution. The 14th Amendment was intended to make those principles, which Trump is now denying, completely unassailable for all time.
Well, that'd depend on the law's definition of a cage but it's a hell of a lot easier to protect chickens that are fully enclosed vs those that are free range.
This is a very wrong interpretation of a cage. Cages are matrices of 3 cubic foot volumes with a few pieces of wire separating them. All but the top row are toilets.
Edit: the toilet thing is what I've seen for transport in open-trucks. For most of their lives they're just crammed horizontally.
Caged vs cage free chickens are getting bird flu at about the same rate though, so this claim doesn’t really add up. It’s not like the caged chickens are in hermetically sealed chambers their whole lives, they’re shoulder to shoulder with some wire between them.
Many cage free chickens are also free range chickens, where they can roam outside. That massively increases their chances of picking up the bird flu, as opposed to those they are inside all day.
I'm not advocating for one or the other, just explaining. Even cage free chickens will come into close enough proximity where they will all die if just one chicken picks up the flu. It's incredibly virulent.
I'm in a turkey producing area - one of the largest in the country. What helped massively in 2015 was to simply put fine netting over the windows to the turkey barns, keeping other birds and at least some of their excrement out.
This is from Australia, but whatever:
"In Australia, indoor and free-range poultry, are at risk of contracting avian influenza due direct and indirect contact with waterfowl who may carry avian influenza virus in their nasal and eye discharge or faeces, farming and biosecurity practices.
Indoor (barn or shed) systems limit poultry from direct exposure to wild birds, but these are not immune to avian influenza risks due to indirect contact. This is because equipment, vehicles and human movements between farms can introduce the virus indoors, in particular when on-farm dams or open water sources act as a permanent residence for waterfowl.
Birds with outdoor access (free range) are at risk of coming into direct or indirect contact with wild waterfowl. Vegetated range areas may attract waterfowl, in particular if poultry are given feed or water outdoors. In free-range production systems, producers should therefore focus on managing these systems to reduce the risk of avian influenza."
You really, really need to be citing your sources. You have been bouncing back and forth between sounding authoritative and making assumptions or asking questions (or just being plain wrong).
I'm in a major turkey producing area and my wife worked for a national turkey producing company for 10 years. In 2015 it was all anyone heard about around here for months.
Granted, I don't know much about chickens, but a lot of this is common sense. I'm not sure what you think I'm wrong about.
Typical cage-free chickens are almost as cramped, they're just not (cruelly) confined to a cage. They're still sharing the same air. If one bird gets it in either situation the whole flock will need to be culled, as they're all going to die (more painfully) regardless.
We already have vaccines (some countries use them) and I've seen no evidence that the investigations into newer vaccines have been hampered in any way.
A riot where he specifically told them in the speech before "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard." ?
This doesnt seem to change the fact there was a riot at all?? Surely you at least admit its a stain on the movement that this was the only non-peaceful transfer of power in a looong time, and if you consider how many western democracies have peaceful transfers of power, this is a huge abboration and absolutely not normal
Sure, it obviously wasn't great and obviously Trump handled it horribly. I'm just a little sick of people deliberately ignoring facts because it suits them politically.
Even Trump claiming the election was stolen wasn't new. Hillary Clinton did the exact same thing.
After being told to "fight like hell" that day or else they "wouldn't have a country anymore"? And that since trials in a court of law hadn't worked, "let's have trial by combat"? And when informed that the crowd couldn't get close to the stage because of their weapons and the metal detectors, Trump snapped at his staff that they're "not here to hurt me"?
Somehow, though all the plausible deniability winking and nodding, his fan base got the message; You can see it plainly throughout their communications and postings before and throughout the attack.
Because "fight" can only ever be used to mean a physical altercation?
More or less right after the "fight like hell" part of his speech:
"So we're going to, we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we're going to the Capitol, and we're going to try and give.
The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country."
It's clear (even through his rambling) that he meant they should march down there give the Republicans/Pence the guts (or whatever) to send it back to the states to recertify.
> Trial by combat
That was Giuliani, apparently, who said that.
“Over the next 10 days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent, and if we’re wrong, we will be made fools of, but if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail,” he told the crowd that day. “So, let’s have trial by combat.”
Yes, clearly he's talking about an actual trial by combat.
Honestly though, what were they even "protesting" about? If you say against a rigged election, you need way more than "I think it happened" you need evidence - which they tried very hard to find and never did, not to mention the supposed election rigger left office 4 years later, much more peacefully and smoothly than Trump did. I dont even understand what the hell they were supposed to be mad about, what was he trying to do if not overturn the election?
Trump actually outlines that in the speech before the riot, although he does it in such a meandering Trump-y way that it's hard to parse. He wanted Pence to send it back to the states to have a better look at things, although that would have been messy as hell.
"So as an example, in Pennsylvania, or whatever, you have a Republican legislature, you have a Democrat mayor, and you have a lot of Democrats all over the place. They go to the legislature. The legislature laughs at them, says we're not going to do that. They say, thank you very much and they go and make the changes themselves, they do it anyway. And that's totally illegal. That's totally illegal. You can't do that.
In Pennsylvania, the Democrat secretary of state and the Democrat state Supreme Court justices illegally abolished the signature verification requirements just 11 days prior to the election."
"More than 10,000 votes in Pennsylvania were illegally counted, even though they were received after Election Day. In other words, they were received after Election Day. Let's count them anyway."
There's a ton more. Some true, some not, etc. The annoying part is the media completely disregarded stuff like this, which only enraged his base more.
The real issue in my opinion that we don't have enough systems and transparency in place to be 100% sure our elections are fair. We should have random audits.
Hijinks with what same states pulled with their election laws during COVID shouldn't happen. Hillary Clinton claimed Trump stole the election from her, so this isn't a new feeling - Trump just had an actual support base he could rile up. Unfortunately for all of us, with the political system being so partisan I fear nobody can even propose more election security without coming off like a crazy person.
> He wanted Pence to send it back to the states to have a better look at things
"To have a better look at things" is a very euphemistic way of saying "to override the vote counts." In fact, Trump had a very specific plan for what Pence should do, involving slates of fake electors that Pence should seat, in place of the actual electors chosen through the electoral process. Those fake electors would then cast their votes for Trump, overturning the will of the voters. The whole thing failed because Pence refused to go along with such a blatantly illegal scheme. That's why the rioters that Trump whipped up set up a gallows outside the Capitol to hang Pence on.
> Hijinks with what same states pulled with their election laws during COVID shouldn't happen
Allowing people to vote without endangering themselves during a pandemic is not "hijinks."
> the Democrat state Supreme Court
It's the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Period. Not the "Democrat state Supreme Court." They made an entirely reasonable decision, based on their understanding of the law: any ballot put in the mail before the election deadline was valid. There was a legal dispute over this, the court made a ruling well before the election, and those were the rules for the election.
I don’t believe it’s just status symbol - until the recent RCS implementation having an Android phone in your group text meant that photos/videos would be awful MMS quality.
If we’re talking about banned words or terms, one of our Supreme Court justices wouldn’t define the term “woman.”
The Biden administration directed ICE to use the term “undocumented noncitizen” instead of “illegal alien.” They also pressured social media sites to censor certain content.
is any of this comparable to banning any acknowledgement of the existence of trans and intersex people in anything connected to the federal government?
in fact refusing to define a term doesn't sound like banning at all. to ban is to forbid somebody else from doing something. to refuse to do something personally isn't banning.
Being unable to describe a woman would be pretty similar to banning trans acknowledgement. They're basically 2 sides of the same coin; the mismatch between reality and the categories we use. There are different opinions about which part of the mental model has to give. Ie, the concept of man/woman is too imprecise for political discourse - do politicians abandon the word woman or do they abandon the parts of reality that don't fit into a man/woman model?
The obvious solution is the third option of letting a few more genders in, but that would still require being able to articulate what a woman is.
The gender one is more consequential; if we accept that they exist there are a lot of women who get involved in the legal system because of their gender. Eg, say there is a case that involves gender discrimination - a judge that can't identify what a woman is will struggle to come up with reasonable rulings.
In fairness we don't have the words the judge used in front of us so maybe there was some hedging involved. But they do have to be able to come up with a working definition.
if the ruling is unsatisfactory, you can appeal. you can bring in expert witnesses. she's a professional, and she'll make her decisions based on the facts of the case, and hopefully not based on prejudice. if it's the supreme court, she won't be alone.
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