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Statistics and gender
Or, perhaps a bit more precisely, I would say that almost everyone misunderstands common statistics - but not in the same ways!
So we'll pull in sex for an example. There's a school of thought that says that there's virtually no difference between men and women, statistically, on anything important. There's another school of thought that says they're so incredibly different, statistically, on virtually everything important, they almost don't look like the same species! And to make this even funnier, these two schools of thought can often point to the SAME data to support their diametrically opposed conclusions!
Ok, so let me break this down for you with just a little more detail. Let's pick an attribute we test for, aggressiveness is a good one here, because the statistical differences between the sexes are about as dramatic on this measure as you'll find anywhere.
So, if I pick out two individuals randomly, and I tell you nothing other than their sex - one is male, the other is female - and ask you to guess which one is more aggressive, what's your guess?
If you guessed the male, of course that was the better guess statistically. But your edge isn't very big, you're only 60% likely to be right. If I answered female I still have a 40% chance to get the question right - you've only got a little edge, not a solid distinction of kind.
In fact, if you go select a group of women who are just a little more aggressive than average, and set them up against a group of males who are just a little less aggressive than average the women are absolutely going to use the guys as footstools and doormats.
This is the no significant differences argument simplified a bit for easy digestion. And it's valid. It's true. On average, women are only a little bit less aggressive than men, and many women are more aggressive than many men. So it's ignorant prejudice to say that men are the aggressive ones and women are not aggressive. It's radically contrary to the facts! And if that's true in terms of aggressiveness it's much more true on most other metrics.
BUT, there are more facts than have been mentioned. What if we look beyond the average, at the distribution?
What if, instead of randomly selecting a male and a female from the general population, we FIRST randomly select 100 individuals, 50 males 50 females, THEN select the most aggressive individual of the bunch. This time, we guess which sex that individual is. Again, you say male, leaving me with the contrary position.
This time the odds are entirely different. There's virtually no chance I'll win.
The average woman is only slightly less aggressive than the average male, and more aggressive than many. Many women are more aggressive than the average male. But the most aggressive man on the planet will be a male. In fact, if we could rank every individual on earth, something like the top 5-6 million people would be males. Only after that would you start seeing females.
A really neat thing is this actually works almost as well in the opposite direction as well. Lots of women are fairly low on the aggression scale but if you want to find someone that is really freakishly low on it, yeah, that's probably going to be a male. Imagine that!
The middles of the distributions aren't far off. But the shape is different, and there are a lot more males waaaaay out on the limbs. On lots of different metrics, not just aggression.
No, anonymous Trump official, you're a coward...
If you are defrauding the American people by disguising your own orders as the President's you are a criminal! If you want to be part of the 'resistance' stand and be counted like a man!
The piece suggests America is currently under a "two-track presidency." If President Trump wants to do something the people in his administration think is good, they go along with it. If he wants to do something they think is bad, they find ways around it. This is in keeping with what the Bob Woodward book excerpt revealed: Senior officials are taking things off Trump's desk to keep him from seeing them.
Nobody who’s part of the real resistance should be celebrating this. If you work in this administration and carry out any part of Trump's agenda, you are enabling him, not undermining him. If we have a president so incompetent that his most trusted advisors have to play peekaboo to preserve national security, then those people should be working to get him out of office, not just spare us from his cruelest impulses.
...
If they really believe there's a need to subvert the president to protect the country, they should be getting this person out of the White House. But they're too cowardly and afraid of the possible implications.
No, anonymous Trump official, you're not 'part of the resistance.' You're a coward
They say the Mob is running our Government.
Folks, I've been watching Brett's hearing. And Senator Cornyn from Texas -- great Republican of Texas -- said something so interesting about our Senate. Something I hear from a lot of people. He said the Mob rules it. Mafia guys, if you're listening, we need Brett in that seat!!! oann.com/sen-cornyn-slams-democrats-for-mob-rule-during-kavanaugh-hearing
Another quick thought on left and right
I think it's important that we realize that both of these ideas have both positive and negative aspects. It's important that we do NOT harden these tendencies into tribal division as we are doing now - it's important that each side recognize the positive aspects of the opposition - and the negative aspects of their own side.
So what are they? Off the cuff, the left is, at it's best, the champion of the oppressed, the vanguard of positive change, the people that are making the world better. But it's also envy. It's refusing to believe that anyone could be richer than me without doing something wrong. It's creating the oppressed so that you can be their champion, it can tend too easily not just to tribalism, but to a particularly virulent and harmful form of tribalism - the assumption of moral superiority which so easily escalates to dehumanization and thence to mass murder. Look at the Soviet Union after the fall. It's change for the sake of change, it's that idea that somehow burning down the system that keeps food in the mouth and roof over the head of so many of your fellow humans is actually going to improve their lot. It won't.
And the right? At it's best, it is indeed the champions of civilization, the willingness to stand up and strap on your gear and go face the barbarian at the gate. But it's also greed. It's taking the easy choice of acceding to tradition, as if you were helpless before it - but only when doing so benefits you financially. At it's worst, it too veers into tribalism, to nationalism and racism and every form of jingoism - and with those things the same tendency to dehumanize, to excuse murder, war, genocide.
When we divide into right and left, we lose. We need to do the opposite. We need a middle ground, not in terms of a compromise, but of selecting the best qualities of each.
Thank you General Nicholson & General Miller of NATO!!!
Folks, I don't know why my Journal looks so STRANGE. There must be something VERY SPECIAL happening with the cyber. And my cyber guys have the day off -- very special day for them and for America. Which we call Labor Day.
Big thanks to General Austin Miller & Gen. John Nicholson from my Army. For working very hard with NATO to Keep Afghanistan Educated!!! NATO says, "oh, let's not fight, let's teach." And they're doing a beautiful job. Believe me, I love the well educated!!! pic.twitter.com/ffvgDKj92A stripes.com/miller-replaces-nicholson-as-us-allied-commander-in-afghanistan-1.545575
Thoughts & prayers for our great, and very brave solider who was wounded in Afghanistan on Monday. And for the family of our amazing soldier that was killed that day!!! foxnews.com/us/2018/09/03/us-service-member-in-afghanistan-dead-in-apparent-insider-attack-on-monday.html
My beautiful military -- not NATO, that's so important -- is fighting very hard to beat ISIS in Afghanistan. And, everywhere. Big victory, my guys whacked one of their top leaders, he was called Abu Sayeed Orakzai. Good riddance!!!! foxnews.com/world/2018/08/26/leader-isis-affiliate-in-afghanistan-killed-in-us-drone-strike-officials-say.html
I Resigned My Contract This Evening
Dear $CHIEF_EXECUTIVE_OFFICER,
I hereby resign my contract with $CLIENT_COMPANY, if you will agree to release me from it.
Starting around Wednesday evening last week I want completely out of my Damn tree. Friday evening I dialled 9-1-1 to request ambulance transport to an Emergency Room. I slept there that night then Saturday morning was transported to a psychiatric hospital.
Mental hospitals don't release you when you're completely sane again rather they do so when they feel you're simply capable of living life on your own. This because there is always a shortage of available beds.
It is difficult for me to type this correctly because I am still quite symptomatic.
When I get back to the office I'll make sure I have a clean build of my sources then will send them to you .
This was a small contract; I was to be paid upon completion so there are no considerations about giving any money back.
I gave $CHIEF_EXECUTIVE_OFFICER the contact info for four of my friendly competitors.
Florida, don't Monkey this up!!! 🐵
Not only did Congressman Ron DeSantis easily win the Republican Primary, but his opponent in November is his biggest dream........a failed Socialist Mayor named @AndrewGillum who has allowed crime & many other problems to flourish in his city. This is not what Florida wants or needs!
The Attention Gift Hypothesis
I sat up all night long last night to compost my very latest Wall Of Text.
Don't feel the need to read it all at once.
Or at all: I have just as many if not more Haters than Fans not just of my websites but as well as my great many articles, essays, rants and manifestos.
It's time for a Totally _Righteous_ Reuben Sandwich from one of Downtown Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square food carts.
Off to lunch!
I Have Been Coughing Up Phlegm For Six Solid Hours.
Is that bad?
At least it's not green. Green is bad.
A two pack a day friend I once had denoted his own phlegm as "Lung Cheese" yet strangely uncritically accepted such Cheese.
I am otherwise awake enough and functioning mentally well enough to write code.
I got to work at Midnight Monday night. I spent less than five minutes staring at my source then quite grimly quit Xcode then hung out on the Net until the trains started running again about 5:30.
What I regard as "today" but no one in their right mind would actually so regard led me to arrive at work at nine Monday evening.
I've been able to somehow extract from deep within myself the Moral Fibre required to Deliver Value to my client for six hours or so.
For me, that's a good day but for a whole lot of really good reasons I promised a delivery "today" for various values of "today".
In my own particular internally-consistent system of Postulates and whatever Gödel Escher Bach calls the means by which one can start with some postulates, apply some operators to eventually arrive at an item that is contained within any particular internally-consistent system - Help Me Out Here, I'm Begging You! - all possible values of "today" commence when I somehow drag my sorry ass out of my beloved warm, comfortable bed right up until I pass out on the sidewalk while waiting for the MAX Yellow Line from Pioneer Courthouse Square to North Portland's Delta Park / Vanport Station.
While it often slips my mind, despite my Totally Whacko sleep/wake patterns I really do have a completely normal Circadian Rhythm. It's just that my Circadian Rhythm has very little influence over when I feel the need to sleep or when I'm ready to wake up and start my day.
I actually sleep far more than anyone I have ever met but when I actually do so is all over the map.
I have no understanding of why I sleep or awaken without correlation to my otherwise-normal Circadian Rhythm nor have any of the many Medical and Mental Health Professional I have quite desperately begged for insight from.
The one thing I can say is that whether I'm able to focus on my code as opposed to my great many Walls Of Text quite closely tracks my Circadian:
I always feel totally trashed as well as freezing cold starting around 6:30 AM until 8:00 or so. Just now at Midnight I'm at my mental peak so I would do well to stop composing such a great many Walls Of Text that I may Deliver Value to my client...
... just after...
... I submit to SN...
... what I regarded as...
... what for me is an uncommonly concise...
... as well as effectively argued...
KTHXBAI!
I Just Feel On My Sword
To: the-boss@client.com, his-coder@client.com
Subject: This Is Very EmbarrassingI just a couple hours ago realized that my code was A Multitude Of Sins.
I'm now making rapid progress and will stay at the office until I have a meaningful build to deliver.
(Attempting to salvage what's left of my repution.)
I'm now feeling a whole lot more confident that I can reliably do what you're paying me to do today.
Disconcertedly,
Mike
Do Yer Worst.
