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Criticism/Defense Of Billionaire Philanthropy Taxes will probably not go to the same causes, e.g. reforming the bail system, grassroot efforts for migrants, etc. Admittedly, these are things that the government should be doing, but it seems that the government doesn’t do enough. Furthermore, some of these issues so politicized, e.g. immigrants, that government support can be fickle. Foundations are more effective than governments as they do their due diligence, e....

Going to a talk is difficult for everyone because nobody understands the whole thing, but it’s especially difficult for undergraduates because they still expect to. is a rich resource for understanding scholarly literature. Browse it. Some of the listed items are familiar, e.g. Google Scholar, SCImago, Sci-Hub, but it’d be informative to zoom out to the larger picture, e.g. good alternatives to Google Scholar. Why Even Read Papers?...

The Parable of the Talents. Scott Alexander. slatestarcodex.com . Jan 31, 2015. Overweight people, depressed people, and poor people aren’t fully to blame for their situation – and neither are unintelligent people. It’s accidents of birth all the way down. Srinivasa Ramanujan: Grew up in poverty in a one-room house in small-town India. But a lot of poor people in the US had better conditions/opportunities Either, a lot of intelligence is innate Or, those poor people are just not trying hard enough....

No Clarity Around Growth Mindset. Scott Alexander. slatestarcodex.com . Apr 8, 2015. Growth mindset: people who believe effort - and not ability - determines success are more resilient, skillful, hard-working, perseverant in the face of failure. Most of the growth mindset experiments prime their subjects, but recent priming experiments have famously failed to replicate. Dweck’s experiment: Group A: easy test (success) -> final bound-to-fail test Group B: hard test (told they’re not working hard enough) -> final bound-to-fail test Group B outperformed Group A....

Book Review: All Therapy Books. Scott Alexander. slatestarcodex.com . Nov 20, 2019. Scott’s thesis: Each of the therapy books on their own can be convincing. But they should be taken in the context of All Therapy Books, which as a category are pretty worrying. Dodo Bird Verdict : All psychotherapies are about equally good, and the only things that matters are “nonspecific factors” like how much patients like their therapist....

State Surveillance In the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection, FBI was contacting people whose cellphones pinged cell towers near the Capitol during the riots. #state-surveillance A powered mobile phone always sends signals to one of the closest base stations. Given multiple base stations, the angle and time of arrival, and location signatures of each cell location can be used to locate a mobile device. The higher the density of cell towers, the more precise the calculated location....

Signs of a Scout These Don’t Make You a Scout Feeling objective. The more objective you feel, the more you trust your own intuitions and opinions as accurate representations of reality, and the less inclined you are to question them. Being smart and knowledgeable. It’s not a case of “if people were smarter and well-informed, they’d realize their errors”. For example, found that polarization (on political fronts) on anthropogenic climate change increases as scientific intelligence increases....