How do you develop a good epistemic network? (6-22-23)

01:00 Titan sub owner had no time for old white men, https://twitter.com/JFGariepy/status/1671678473813852165
12:00 How do you develop a good epistemic network? https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus/
14:00 What is an epistemic community?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_community
16: How Do You Develop A Good Epistemic Network? https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=148726
25:30 Dooovid joins, https://twitter.com/RebDoooovid
1:01:00 Do you think the elite derive their sense of meaning from community, family, and friends?

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How Do You Develop A Good Epistemic Network?

You give priority to theories (such as the predictive power of IQ for large groups) and thinkers that replicate (that different groups have different gifts consistently replicates) and have predictive and explanatory power.

You shouldn’t fear a challenge. You should be able to engage with differing points of view. Your epistemic network should encourage you to develop the best possible relations with everyone. As your epistemics improve, your life should improve. Your network should score low on the Gurometer. You favorite thinkers should withstand a good decoding.

You don’t want to be your worldview on hot takes that get your juices flowing.

You should understand that ties bind and blind. It’s great to belong to a community, but if you want to think clearly, you have step outside of your ties and look at things objectively.

Everyone has a hero story. Understand the incentives that people work under. For example, if the people pushing climate change legislation would have the same left-wing agenda even if there were no climate change, be appropriately suspicious of their claims.

If someone can’t acknowledge that different peoples have different gifts, they’re not much use for understanding reality. Nothing in the social science reproduces like the studies of large-group IQ differences. If your fear of getting canceled forces you to deny the blindingly obvious, you’re not much of a source for truth.

When 12-year old boys can easily beat the greatest female athletes, don’t tell me how amazing women’s sports are and that they deserve identical pay to higher performing men. If you can’t acknowledge significant differences between men and women, you’re no use for understanding life.

I don’t believe in turning over our lives and governments to experts. Expertise has become so specialized that only experts, it seems can evaluate the claims of other experts. On the other hand, I’m not a populist who believes that wisdom resides in the people. Sometimes, it seems to me, the experts are right and sometimes the people are right.

Just because someone has expertise in one area, such as making a nuclear bomb, does not bestow them with wisdom in other areas, such as whether or not to use the nuclear bomb on an enemy such as WWII Japan.

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Explaining The Left-Right Political Spectrum (6-21-23)

01:00 Left–right political spectrum, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left–right_political_spectrum
05:30 Peep Show on gay pride, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peep_Show_(British_TV_series)
15:00 Key Concepts in Politics and International Relations by Andrew Heywood
21:00 Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=53222
26:00 The Confluence of the Gurosphere, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=148688
39:00 Dooovid joins, https://twitter.com/RebDoooovid

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There’s No Business Model For Telling The Truth (6-20-23)

01:00 Truth, news, never pay, https://www.motherjones.com/media/2023/06/news-never-pays/
16:00 Dennis Prager Falls Into The Conspiracy Rabbit Hole, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=148655
29:00 The two conspiracy theories I buy — government surveillance used for nefarious purposes, and sexual blackmail controls a great deal of the world
32:30 Richard Spencer critiques Charles Johnson, https://t.co/pOF2ZKMSDA
43:00 Joe Biden loves the gay tribute
46:30 The role of debate in establishing truth
47:30 The role of grievance in group identity
52:00 Matthew McConaughey is becoming a guru, https://www.crowdcast.io/c/hx6te2tzi1ay
53:30 United States of A-Merit-A, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4CB4oq8Ps8
1:15:00 Elliott Blatt joins
1:18:00 It’s a bad idea for Elliott to have employees
1:21:00 Do you get high from rescuing people?
1:38:00 Elliott Blatt’s terrible Twitter feed
1:40:00 Gay pride month

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United States of A-Merit-A

Dennis decried affirmative action on his Youtube show June 19, 2023: “Society will suffer because merit will no longer be the reason for any position. It says to the ones who work hard, don’t bother working hard because we’re no longer choosing by merit. It says to the minority, there’s no reason to work hard, you’re going to get ahead just because of your gender or race.”

Selective affirmative action (and all affirmative action is selective), needless to say, does not mean that merit and hard work count for nothing.

Julie Hartman: “Everything you said is spot on. If you follow the merit route, it is the most quality inducing, diversity rewarding situation… All of these outcomes that the left proclaims that they want. If we create an environment where people succeed on merit, we will see representation. We will see blacks in leadership positions. We will see all of the things that left claims they want.”

Unless different peoples have different gifts. Then not so much.

Dennis: “You’ve seen PragerU and how diverse it is and there is no affirmative action.”

Like many American Jews, Dennis Prager has warm feelings about blacks. He practices affirmative action on his radio show, bending over backwards to be particularly kind to his black callers. On Jan. 19, 1998, Dennis said that if he had to choose between two equally qualified potential employees, he’d probably choose the black. A caller reminded Dennis of his stand that race doesn’t matter. Dennis replied that he didn’t live in theory.

Jul. 12, 2013, Dennis said: “There’s an affirmative action program on this program for black conservatives.”

Apr. 7, 2014, Dennis said: “There are times when a person’s views are so horrific, it is hard to understand how a company could continue to employ someone. If a guy is in the Ku Klux Klan, if a guy is in a white supremacist fascistic group, I understand it. If you deny the Holocaust and you deny it publicly. There are a few [beliefs a person can hold that make him worthy of being fired] because you’re talking about freaks. Freaks are in the KKK.”

Julie says to Dennis June 19: “You and the Torah are such a winning combination. The Torah is so wise and you are so wise. There’s just no better translator for it. That’s the perfect project for someone like you. The Torah is life-changing stuff.”

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