That’s what I thought too. For example if they “control” for factors like IQ or social economic status, then the correlations will be reduced.
This isn’t a surprise unless you think the delay of gratification is itself the cause of success (seems like a straw man so they can claim to “challenge” the original study)
One interesting thing to do is use a model directly like Llama and then query the next-token probability logits for "he" and "she" (assuming you set up the sentence in such a way).
For example:
"A doctor was examining the patient when ___"
What this makes apparent is that increasing model temperature will select the less stereotypical option more often.
IMO this is getting at a deeper truth that the use of a gender in language, and historically defaulting to "he", was not about creating a bias, but instead it was a pattern which maximises information density and minimises useless information. Randomising the gender as is done today packs useless information into it.
Which one is more respectful is a different question. The lowest entropy option would still be the most likely gender specific pronoun. This would depend on the language, of course.
> IMO this is getting at a deeper truth that the use of a gender in language, and historically defaulting to "he", was not about creating a bias, but instead it was a pattern which maximises information density and minimises useless information. Randomising the gender as is done today packs useless information into it.
Where can I read more about this "truth"? Where is this assertion coming from that gendered pronouns developed to minimize useless information? It seems far more plausible to me that pervasive defaulting to male experiences caused many (certainly not all) human languages to (1) develop gendered pronouns and (2) default to the male pronoun.
If a set is countable, then there exists a mapping which is a one-to-one correspondence between the items and the natural numbers (that’s the definition of countable). This correspondence would always allow you to determine the “next” item (by converting to a natural, incrementing, then converting back). However there could be multiple mappings (sorted differently, for instance) and so it’s more specifically, whether it’s possible to have a next function.
In other words, there can be multiple next functions, but a set is countable iff there is at least one of them.
Your definition would rule out finite sets. You don't need a bijection. A surjection from the natural numbers suffices.
In plain English, you need to construct an infinite sequence (a,b,c,d,...) which (i) consists of elements of a set S (ii) contains every element of S at least once - sometimes many times over. We also allow the members of this sequence to equal an exceptional value we denote with an asterisk: *. This is to take into account the possibility that S may be an empty set. Without this exceptional value, such a sequence cannot exist if S is empty. If S has at least 1 element, then we don't need the exceptional value.
I don't know if this means you can sensibly talk about a "next" element. The problem is that an element of S might repeat. What you're describing sounds equally like a total ordering. Assuming the Axiom Of Choice, every set has a total ordering, but the indices are not in general natural numbers, but may be ordinal numbers. You cannot in general exhibit such a total ordering, because anything proved using the Axiom Of Choice is merely known to exist, but cannot always be computed or constructed.
Ah, yes. The definition I tried to use was from Wikipedia, in full: "In mathematics, a set is countable if either it is finite or it can be made in one to one correspondence with the set of natural numbers." I missed the part where it said finite. Thank you for correcting that.
If you take your sequence construction, then by removing duplicates from the sequence, this new sequence would allow finding a "next" element.
Since social media companies can't be trusted to make that decision, I'm more worried that what they censor was true speech. Why? Because if it was false, they could just show the truthful information like Twitter did. Basic facts are contentious nowadays (e.g. number of genders in humans). They're going to get it wrong, so it's just too dangerous to censor.
This is a project I'm working on to get more truth on the internet. If deemed factual by the network, you gain more tokens from those who voted opposite to you. It uses the logarithmic market scoring rule (LMSR), and after one side holds a majority for 7 days, that side is paid out (no real money is involved yet, points are all free).
I applaud your effort, but, while there may actually be a single version of truth in the universe, there is effectively no good way to prove it.
I don't think a show of hands is helpful. I regularly encounter Reddit threads with 95% of the comments agreeing on something that elsewhere in the thread is clearly shown to be dis- or mis- information.
Cutting out political bias also fails to solve problems, because there are plenty of gullible, but "unbiased", fools out there, whose fact-checking isn't valuable. In fact, fools on the internet unwittingly do plenty of legwork for clever propagandists.
In my opinion, what would be useful is to allow the user to choose other users whom he or she trusts, and get a truth score based on their opinions. Create that and I'll be the first to join.
Just to be clear, its more than a show of hands because you choose how many tokens you want to stake. So in the Reddit example, if those 5% were willing to stake more, they’d have majority.
I chose to not go with a choose your trust model because I think the truthfulness information is a ‘what’ question, and checking ‘who’ only goes so far. But once those trustworthy users earn more tokens, they should have a larger influence on the system. Perhaps that would interest you?
Apologies if I sold your work short. I was sincere in my appreciation for your efforts. The world badly needs more people to tackle issues like these.
Okay, that said. I still think the approach will prove not to satisfy your goals...
> I think the truthfulness information is a
> ‘what’ question, and checking ‘who’ only goes so far.
As a thought experiment, how often would a vote-based system, if our prevailing moral code today were that of the Antebellum South or Nazi Germany, clear up slander and lies against minorities? My guess is pretty much never (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism).
Under a system where the user instead defers to authorities of their own choice, one could easily choose more forward-thinking judges, and consistently get answers akin to those we have today.
I'm not able to know how often it could prevent such slander in those times, but we can look at the incentives. In those times, the authorities (church, newspapers) had central control over the main narrative, which is still mostly true today, but is beginning to fall. Back then, it seems you could slander minorities and there was pretty much no way for minorities to defend against it. In contrast, the upper classes had a means (duelling as an example) as an incentive against slander, and that imposes a cost on it. On social media there is no cost to publish lies. Verifact seeks to impose a cost on lies because you need to have something at stake. So I think if it existed at the time, Verifact would make it more costly to slander minorities, and it would be more profitable to disprove all kinds of pseudoscientific beliefs such as racial superiority and Nazi eugenics. Of course though, Verifact requires access to communication channels and tokens and that wouldn't be viable in those times.
> authorities of their own choice, one could easily choose more forward-thinking judges
Yeah could be interesting. I'd just want to make sure people don't create echo-chambers or follow others based on political opinions rather than facts. Perhaps letting people 'invest' in the judgment decisions of others would help, and you'd get notified when they stake.
I want to avoid discussing "echo-chambers" as my views on that topic make me sound like a knee-jerk contrarian. So I'll wish you success here, and thank you for your efforts :)
What is the process for overturning a ruling? I worked with some blockchain folks on this concept and I will say, it is rife with challenges.
The most important thing you can do right now, if you want people to invest their energy in this app, is to convince people that you understand the human relationship with truth-seeking well enough to optimize the process with technology. That will take some thoughtful writing.
The staking is open for 7 days, so discussion and adding more stakes is fine during that phase. But after 7 days, since it's tokens, it cannot reverse the transaction. However, I plan to allow "re-posting" the Tweet, and then it will show the new updated consensus (with a button to view the old one).
> ... to convince people that you understand the human relationship with truth-seeking well enough to optimize the process with technology. That will take some thoughtful writing.
Yeah, exactly right. That has been very challenging so far, but I'm making some progress, and working on this. Is there anything on the subject that has made a difference for you personally, perhaps for ideas and inspiration?
I think, the core system isn't thought through correctly. I mean, as I have see clicking on different facts that habe been checked, I can place one or dozens of votes for my opinion. What if there is a user thaz gained so many vote tokens and just outvotes other opiniond on something?
A vote should be binary. I can or can't vote. Summary: The main idea is kinda ok, but the system to solve it isn't something I would trust.
I want the staking mechanism to incentivise truth. Binary votes don't provide such a system. Binary votes (aka polls) can be useful to gauge opinions, but are insufficient to aggregate knowledge, and can easily be manipulated. Take for instance the stock market. If all a trader could do was make a binary decision of "Is this company good?" and they only get one vote, that doesn't generate any useful information. But instead ask them how much they're willing to pay for a share, then now we have high quality data about the value of a company, and that is hard to manipulate.
> What evidence do you have for this? I've never seen a bad or immoral or harmful idea die out when more people learn about it and scrutinize it.
There is a significant amount of evidence for it. For example, one could measure the effects of showing people fact-checks, and it has been demonstrated that it does indeed work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact-checking#Effects
And there are countless ideas that have died out when more people learn. It's easy to forget about them, precisely because they do die off. A few big ones that were held by the majority but died out:
- flat earth (before Galileo)
- pro-slavery views
- human sacrifice
- caning children
- hanging
- smoking is good for you
- communism
- laws against gay marriage
> In fact, social pressure is one of the most effective tools against hate and ignorance like this
It can be used to enforce hate and ignorance as well. It's naive to think that the way you propose enforcing it would be different to all other times in history when it was used.
> Most of them _everyone_ knew about for thousands, or even tens of thousands of years
This is false.
For most of the past several thousand years of history, "knowledge" has been imposed and speech has been restricted by religious and/or political decree.
Freedom of speech, along with the value of the individual, are enlightenment values - i.e., they have only been around for a couple of hundred years, and even then only in a few parts of the world, and even then they have continued to be suppressed and assaulted at every opportunity.
But those of us who have been lucky enough to grow up in societies that have relatively high levels of freedom of speech and freedom of the individual can easily take these freedoms for granted.
But if you look at all the positive societal changes that are espoused by people who believe in liberal values: workers' rights, women's rights (to vote, work, refuse or leave marriage, own property, drive), equality and rights for racial/religious minorities, immigrants, the disabled, gay people, etc; these changes have happened first where there has been the greatest freedom of speech.
Yes I know it's unpleasant to hear speech that feels uncomfortable or dangerous, but be assured it is immeasurably better than the alternative.
Edit:
For what it's worth, I've been paying attention to the David Icke story since he first appeared on London Real a few weeks ago, and I'm a financial supporter of an investigative reporter who has gone deep researching and revealing the possibility that this whole thing looks like a financial scam by London Real.
It looks every bit like The Streisand Effect is at work here, and that YouTube's ban of Icke is only serving to amplify his signal, increase his following and generate huge amounts of money for London Real (and possibly Icke too).
So it's the Hydra myth playing out yet again. Be careful what you wish for.
Because "sunlight" includes the norms of a free and intellectually-open society, which didn't develop until well after those thousands of years. Censorship itself is not even that bad merely due to how it might deal with the YouTube fruitcake du jour; it's really, really bad because it's openly destructive of these hard-gained shared norms, in so many ways.
This is a pretty low effort comment, but more importantly is conceding the several upthread assertions that freedom of speech has historically been effective at correcting bad ideas.
If your claim is that we shouldn't expect this to continue in the future, that's a whole new claim that you need to support.
I mean, a teleological view of history and ethics is just so absurd that it disturbs me that professed "rational" scientifically minded people believe it. There's no basis for believing just because things "tend" to get better that is in itself a causative argument about some intrinsic nature of humanity.
I mean, even the example used ("the noble class") is preposterous on face because:
1. The Russian Revolution? Germany 1849? Even the American Revolution? None of these are about ideas, or "shining the light on ignorance" -- they're about putting the nobility up against the wall. If there's some kind of teleology at play here, it's not that we thought about it in the marketplace of ideas long enough and decided to do away with the concept.
2. Nobility still exists! At best, this just means we live in a secular society, where we no longer believe the Word of God justifies massive inequality.
Only as formality in some countries. In America, there are some people who call the Kennedys "America's aristocracy", call JFK's white house "Camelot", and make references to members of the Kennedy family being "entitled" to office, but there's no legal basis for it.
All the events you list happened in the wake of the enlightenment, the period when ideas challenging the validity of the dominance of the monarchies, nobles and the church were disseminated and popularised in large part due to the invention of the printing press - i.e., an instrument of free speech.
This either trivially true, in the sense that the Western canon builds on itself, or patently absurd, in the sense that you attempt to frame the 1918 revolution as being a mere effect of the invention of the printing press 500 years earlier. Neither strikes me as being particularly rigorous historiography.
It was one-line discussion-board summation of what is widely accepted by historians (as you said, "trivially true"), but if you'd like to share an explanation of how the spread of ideas leading to the revolutions of Europe could have happened without an innovation that had the same effect as the printing press did, I'd be intrigued to to read it.
> patently absurd
So far, three of your replies in this thread alone have contained the word "absurd".
They probably all break the HN guidelines ("Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation", and "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says").
But more importantly, you're too busy sneering at other people's comments to make any positive assertion of your own.
So what is it you actually want to persuade us of, about the appropriate levels of constraints on speech in the modern world?
> If you'd like to share an explanation of how the spread of ideas leading to the revolutions of Europe could have happened without an innovation that had the same effect as the printing press ded, I'd be genuinely intrigued to to read it.
History is more complicated than a single invention! It's needlessly reductive.
I could also say: "how could have the revolutions of Europe happened without mercantile capitalism challenging the economic structures of feudalism?" But that's just imposing a post-hoc narrative on history that happens to fit my existing views.
> So what is it you actually want to persuade us of, about the appropriate levels of constraints on speech in the modern world.
My sole reason for participating in this thread is to firmly reject idealism and the teleological view of history. Ideas aren't magic. Technology isn't either.
(P.S. it's kind of hilarious that you're invoking HN rules regarding my speech in the same breath as you are defending the merits of free speech.)
> History is more complicated than a single invention
Yes, of course, I never claimed otherwise. But some concepts are more fundamental and influential than others, and the flow of information is more fundamental and influential than most.
> My sole reason for participating in this thread is to firmly reject idealism and the teleological view of history. Ideas aren't magic. Technology isn't either.
If that's all you're trying to say, then, OK, thanks for pointing that out.
> it's kind of hilarious that you're invoking HN rules regarding my speech in the same breath as you are defending the merits of free speech
Fine, have your free point :)
But dismissing everyone else's comments as "absurd", "preposterous", "hilarious" etc whilst not making any effort to construct a solid assertion about the main topic is just a waste of everyone's time.
> America literally has a nobility class right now.
Literally nope. For example, there is no law that says the word of one group of people is worth more in court than another group. There are no laws saying only certain people can be in power based on their ancestors. There is no law enshrining divine right.
I think "routinely" is overstating it. These days, "infrequently" is probably more accurate. US politics is very much of the monied, for the monied. Without a huge warchest, barring odd circumstances[1], you've got little chance of making it through the various filters.
[1] e.g an extremely unpopular incumbent against a popular challenger with excellent ground game.
> politics is very much of the monied, for the monied
This is somewhat true of course (though Obama is a notable recent exception).
Indeed it's pretty true in most countries and systems of government (though my closest experience is here in Australia, where all our prime ministers going back almost 40 years, and most others in our ~120 year history, have come from modest origins).
But the topic at hand is freedom of speech/expression.
Whose interests are likely to be served, ultimately, by constraints on speech/expression?
Those already holding power, or those seeking to reform/subvert the system?
Why has the goalpost moved from an idea dying out, to dying out within one day? And who is "we"?
> Most of them _everyone_ knew about for thousands, or even tens of thousands of years
That's not true. People didn't know about it. When the sunlight came, people changed their beliefs relatively quickly compared to how long the false beliefs were held. Sometimes within a few years, but generally within a generation.
Do you really think people at large didn't know about hanging, slavery, human sacrifice, and ideas about a flat earth in societies where these ideas were applicable?
Not only that, the truth as it's taught in history books was relatively short-lived. Prior to mercantilism and the industrial revolution, slavery and serfdom were basically equivalent. There was a lord and you worked for them in exchange for room and board and protection. You might not love it, but there wasn't really anywhere else to go for anybody who couldn't raise a military force and become a lord themselves.
Then suddenly there were factories who would hire anybody who showed up and pay them real money and plantation workers started running off to work in the factories left and right. It was no longer that people stayed because they had no better option, they were then being forced to stay against their will. The dynamic changed. Chains and beatings entered the scene to keep slaves from running off. They did anyway, so their replacements had to be forcefully kidnapped because there were no longer any volunteers.
The whole thing collapsed and was dismantled in a relatively short period of time after that.
I mean, like many things, this just comes down to axioms that ground your meta-ethics. I don't find moral Platonism very convincing.
There's no natural inclination of humans towards justice or injustice, beyond the limits of our own psychology. To me, the idea that there is some internal teleology towards justice is absurd. These are material struggles and material gains that must be defended materially.
I also reject platonism. I really don't mean to imply changing these norms was easy, or is only a matter of putting the information out there disregarding material conditions and then just hoping for the best.
It seems that having free speech is a necessary, although not sufficient, condition to improve society. It's a principle worth defending.
I think that framing ("necessary but not sufficient") is a much more productive way that I wish free speech advocates would use more.
My opposition to censorship derives from the fact that it tends to require an unjustified hierarchy (i.e. the violence of the state).
However, I have a real problem with imparting some kind of magical quality to ideas. I'm particularly annoyed by the way in which free speech advocates act like social norms are a form of censorship. More specifically, that free speech requires platforming -- i.e., rejecting a freedom of association.
While I do think that the power companies like Google exert of society is well wroth investigating, in general I find that these are much weaker examples of the use of force to censor ideas.
stevebmark said "I've never seen a bad or immoral or harmful idea die out when more people learn about it and scrutinize it"
So I gave examples of some ideas that did in fact die out when people learned about them and scrutinized them. My argument was that it's naive to think censoring ideas this time will be on the right side of history.
I believe this isn't true - the sphericity of the Earth was widely believed well before Galileo.
> - human sacrifice
> - laws against gay marriage
> - caning children
Were these ever views held by the majority? As opposed to, say, a minority of religious zealots in power?
That people thought the Earth was flat before Galileo is a meme. Even Ancient Greeks knew it was round.
> pro-slavery views
In 1776, America is born with its Freedom(TM). In 1829, Mexico abolishes slavery. In 1835, Texas revolts, resulting in Republic of Texas (1836), which then merges with the US (1846), which triggers the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), which leads to, among other things, recognition that Texas is a part of a slave-holding nation. Slavery won't be abolished until the Civil War (1861-1865).
In the end, slavery wasn't abolished by debates: it was abolished by literally sending troops to shoot slave owners.
> communism
Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital in London while writing articles for New-York Daily Tribune. Whatever its merits are, his ideas were widely known throughout Europe, and still accepted widely enough to turn Russia into Soviet Union.
> That people thought the Earth was flat before Galileo is a meme. Even Ancient Greeks knew it was round.
Well knowledge wasn't spread as easily, and could be lost. People knew, then they didn't and so on. It doesn't detract from my point that flat earth is an example of an idea that died off when more people learn about it and scrutinize it.
> In the end, slavery wasn't abolished by debates: it was abolished by literally sending troops to shoot slave owners.
Abolishment of slavery took many angles since it was a massive change of society. Sure, you can pick one country where it required a war. But that doesn't mean the battle of ideas aspect is any less important. Even to rally troops you need to convince them their ideas are worth fighting for.
> (communism) still accepted widely enough to turn Russia into Soviet Union
Sure, and then we saw the results, and the bad idea died off (mostly)
China is not communist, at least not in any way related to the western definition. There is no common ownership of the means of production and there is still very much an independent state, money, and social classification.
Communism collapsed intellectually in the West after the economic collapse of the USSR and the relevant death tolls. I know China is communist, but in democratic countries, for the most part, communism is an idea that died off.
I'd say it died off for generations because of active deplatforming of anyone involved rather than an open debate on the merits. For instance it was literally illegal to be a communist in the US due to the Communist Control Act of 1954.
Google "do facts convince people" and you'll see lots of stuff about this. Here's one, from scientificamerican.com...
> In a series of experiments by Dartmouth College professor Brendan Nyhan and University of Exeter professor Jason Reifler, the researchers identify a related factor they call the backfire effect “in which corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.” Why? “Because it threatens their worldview or self-concept.”
Yes that is a good point. The link I gave mentions that study, and says it has failed replication attempts. I think the truth is more nuanced - there are ways it can be more effective and yes sometimes counter-effective. But that doesn't mean we should just give up fact-checking entirely. I think there are several ways we can make corrective fact checking more convincing to people and am working on building a collaborative fact-checker https://verifact.io to try to do that
Fascistic/authoritarian control of platforms is not compatible with the principles of free speech that allow our society to be free. Calling for censorship based on any wing, is wrong. People should be allowed to express their views, and platforms which repress that should be avoided.
This isn’t a surprise unless you think the delay of gratification is itself the cause of success (seems like a straw man so they can claim to “challenge” the original study)
There is more info from one of the authors here which includes the preregistration document: https://x.com/jess_sperber/status/1818100487964496119
Edit: Also, I think the associations of 0.17 prove the title is false