Interesting articles thread

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Alfi, V., Parisi, G. and Pietronero, L., 2007. Conference registration: how people react to a deadline. Nature Physics, 3(11), pp.746-746.
https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys761

To the Editor — The 'Statphys' conferences on statistical physics take place every three years on a different continent. The number of participants can fluctuate greatly from conference to conference, and it is important that the organizers have an idea of this number as early as possible.

Statphys 23 took place in Genova, Italy, on 9–13 July 2007 (ref. 1). The registration website was activated around the end of January, with the deadline for registration and abstract submission on 31 March. The influx of registrations showed, from the outset, clear linear behaviour. The problem was, however, that the extrapolation of this linear behaviour to the deadline gave a very low number of expected participants. Clearly people tend to register late and one should expect a steepening of the distribution as the deadline approaches — but by how much? Is it possible to predict accurately the final number of registrants?

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Ryavec, K.E., 2021. The World System, Regional Systems, and the Limitations of Historical Urban Population Datasets. Comparative Civilizations Review, 85(85), p.11.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol85/iss85/11

Abstract

This study presents a method for mapping and comparing the regional extents of historical city-based economies at the global scale by integrating the World-Systems Theory of Immanuel Wallerstein with the Regional Systems Theory of G. W. Skinner. The approach taken here focuses on mapping urban cores and their rural peripheries based on available disaggregated urban population estimates for 1741 cities according to six main historical periods from ca. 3700 BCE to 1900 CE. As a result, a spatial history of some regional-scale changes wrought by increasing modes of capitalism in the Modern and Industrial periods may be compared with earlier patterns.

Keywords

World Systems Theory, Regional Systems Theory, Historical Demography, Cities, Historical GIS

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Okagbue, H.I., Oguntunde, P.E., Bishop, S.A., Adamu, P.I., Akhmetshin, E.M. and Iroham, C.O., 2021. Significant Predictors of Henley Passport Index. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 22(1), pp.21-32
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-019-00726-4

Abstract

Henley Passport Index (HPI) is a rank on the number of countries a passport holder of a country can travel VISA-free. Countries with high HPI ranking enjoy certain passport privileges. Little is known about the relationship between HPI and other global indices. This paper investigates the relationship between HPI and the trio of Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Global Peace Index (GPI), and World Happiness Report (WHR). The data of the country ranks of the 4 indices were obtained from the respective websites of the publishers of the indices. A final sample of 150 countries was analyzed after the cases of missing values were discarded. The result showed positive correlation between HPI and CPI (r = 0.768, p < 0.0005), GPI (r = 0.671, p < 0.005), and WHR (r = 0.775, p < 0.005), respectively. Regression analysis yielded an equation that showed that a unit increase in the country ranking of CPI, GPI, and WHR of countries increases the ranking of HPI by 0.196, 0.149, and 0.352, respectively. The coefficients of the independent variables are all significant at p value equals 0.05 and the model validation showed the absence of multicollinearity and the presence of small non-significant autocorrelation. The research concluded that countries with high passport privileges also have low corruption instances and conflicts and are perceived to be happy. The implications of this research were discussed.

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Pluchino, A., Biondo, A.E. and Rapisarda, A., 2018. Talent versus luck: The role of randomness in success and failure. Advances in Complex systems, 21(03n04), p.1850014. (direct link to pdf file)
https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219525918500145

Abstract

The largely dominant meritocratic paradigm of highly competitive Western cultures is rooted on the belief that success is mainly due, if not exclusively, to personal qualities such as talent, intelligence, skills, smartness, efforts, willfulness, hard work or risk taking. Sometimes, we are willing to admit that a certain degree of luck could also play a role in achieving significant success. But, as a matter of fact, it is rather common to underestimate the importance of external forces in individual successful stories. It is very well known that intelligence (or, more in general, talent and personal qualities) exhibits a Gaussian distribution among the population, whereas the distribution of wealth — often considered as a proxy of success — follows typically a power law (Pareto law), with a large majority of poor people and a very small number of billionaires. Such a discrepancy between a Normal distribution of inputs, with a typical scale (the average talent or intelligence), and the scale-invariant distribution of outputs, suggests that some hidden ingredient is at work behind the scenes. In this paper, we suggest that such an ingredient is just randomness. In particular, our simple agent-based model shows that, if it is true that some degree of talent is necessary to be successful in life, almost never the most talented people reach the highest peaks of success, being overtaken by averagely talented but sensibly luckier individuals. As far as we know, this counterintuitive result — although implicitly suggested between the lines in a vast literature — is quantified here for the first time. It sheds new light on the effectiveness of assessing merit on the basis of the reached level of success and underlines the risks of distributing excessive honors or resources to people who, at the end of the day, could have been simply luckier than others. We also compare several policy hypotheses to show the most efficient strategies for public funding of research, aiming to improve meritocracy, diversity of ideas and innovation.

Keywords:

Success; talent; luck; agent-based models; serendipity

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Boyle, M.J., 2013. The costs and consequences of drone warfare. International Affairs, 89(1), pp.1-29. (direct link to pdf file)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.12002

Abstract

One of the distinctive elements of President Barack Obama's approach to counterterrorism has been his embrace of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to target terrorist operatives abroad. The Obama administration has used drones in active theatres of war, such as Afghanistan, but it has also dramatically increased the number of drone attacks launched by the CIA in other countries, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The conventional wisdom on drone warfare holds that these weapons are highly effective in killing terrorist operatives and disabling terrorist organizations, while killing fewer civilians than other means of attack. This article argues that much of the existing debate on drones operates with an attenuated notion of effectiveness that discounts the political and strategic dynamics—such as the corrosion of the perceptions of competence and legitimacy of governments where drone strikes take place, growing anti-Americanism and fresh recruitment of militant networks—that reveal the costs of drone warfare. Focusing particularly on drone use in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the article suggests that the Obama administration's counterterrorism policy operates at cross-purposes because it provides a steady flow of arms and financial resources to build up governments whose legitimacy it systematically undermines by conducting unilateral strikes on their territory. It concludes that the US embrace of drone technology is a losing proposition over the long term as it will usher in a new arms race and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent, destabilized and polarized between those who have drones and those who are victims of them.

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J.A., Barr, N., Koehler, D.J. and Fugelsang, J.A., 2015. On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit. Judgment and Decision making, 10(6), pp.549-563. (direct link to pdf file)

Although bullshit is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from
philosophers, its reception (critical or ingenuous) has not, to our knowledge, been
subject to empirical investigation. Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which
consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful
but are actually vacuous. We presented participants with bullshit statements consisting
of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no
discernible meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). Across multiple
studies, the propensity to judge bullshit statements as profound was associated with a
variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural
belief). Parallel associations were less evident among profundity judgments for more
conventionally profound (e.g., “A wet person does not fear the rain”) or mundane (e.g.,
“Newborn babies require constant attention”) statements. These results support the
idea that some people are more receptive to this type of bullshit and that detecting it is
not merely a matter of indiscriminate skepticism but rather a discernment of deceptive
vagueness in otherwise impressive sounding claims. Our results also suggest that a bias
toward accepting statements as true may be an important component of pseudo-
profound bullshit receptivity.

Keywords: bullshit, bullshit detection, dual-process theories, analytic thinking,
supernatural beliefs, religiosity, conspiratorial ideation, complementary and alternative
medicine.

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Guo, Q., Li, H. and Sun, W., 2020. Globalization or institution?. Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, pp.1-25.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13547860.2020.1837448

Abstract

Thanks to globalization, some countries achieve economic growth despite underdeveloped institutions, raising the issue of whether institutions or other factors might contribute more to economic growth. With settler mortality during colonization as an IV for current institutions of former colonies, Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson found a tremendous, positive effect of institutions on economic performance. We argue that their study ignored an important factor, i.e. globalization, which may both relate to colonial history and affect current economic development, thus potentially biasing the estimate of the impact of institutions. This is because colonial history by English-speaking countries may affect a country’s English proficiency, which in turn may affect its economic globalization and social globalization and thus its economic development, with the United Kingdom and the United States as the world leader in succession. Correspondingly, we add globalization and examine the concomitant effects of globalization and institution on economic performance. With settler mortality and length of colonization by English-speaking countries as instrument variables, we find that globalization contributes greatly to economic performance and the effect of institutions becomes not statistically significant once globalization is taken into account. Of the sub-indices of globalization, the index of social globalization has the strongest and most stable impact on economic performance. Specifically, a one-point increase in overall globalization of a country or region corresponds to about 9.8% increase in its GDP per capita; and a one-point increase in social globalization corresponds to about 7.3% increase in GDP per capita.

Keywords: Institution; globalization; economic performance; colonial history; IV estimation

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Lataster, R., 2013. Bayesian reasoning: Criticising the ‘criteria of authenticity’ and calling for a review of biblical criticism. Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences, 5(2), pp.271-293. (direct link to pdf file)

Abstract:

It is my contention that some of the methods used by a significant portion
of Scholars of Religion – Biblical Scholars – are suspect. The following
paper criticises Biblical scholars’ use of the ‘Criteria of Authenticity’ in
studying Biblical texts, such as the Gospels. Objections to the Criteria
offered by various Biblical scholars, historians and philosophers are
considered, and it is concluded that methodologies revolving around the
Criteria should be reviewed and replaced. One alternative is Bayesian
reasoning, which is revealed to be already in use by historians, and which
makes the work of historians, Biblical scholars and academics in other
disciplines more transparent. A review of objections to Bayesian
methodology reveals them to be largely irrational. It is finally argued that
Bayesian reasoning could be useful in all academic disciplines, which
essentially must utilise and build on an existing knowledge base, in order
to formulate probabilistic hypotheses.

Key words: Criteria of Authenticity, Bayes’ Theorem, Bayesian
reasoning, Biblical scholars

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Gongaki, K., Preka-Papadema, P., Kalachanis, K. and Antonopoulos, P., 2021. Astronomical Calculation of the Dating the Historical Battles of Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis Based on Herodotus’ Description. Scientific Culture, 7(2), pp.81-100. (direct link to pdf file)

ABSTRACT

An important event of world history is the Greek-Persian war (5th century BC), as its outcome (with the victory of the Greeks) defined the evolution of culture in Greece and in whole Europe. Three battles that determined the course of this multi-year war was the battles of Marathon (490 BC) and of Thermopylae (480 BC) and the naval battle of Salamis (480 BC). Although the year of the above events is known, there is an uncertainty as to the date of their conduct. The purpose of this study is the presice determination of these dates based on the historical descriptions of Herodotus and the use of astronomical knowledge as Herodotus relates these events to great celebrations (Olympic Games, Carneia and Great Eleusinia) which were determined on the basis of the lunar calendars of Greek cities. Also, Herodotus mentions two solar eclipses that were observed at the beginning and end of Xerxes’ campaign (480 BC) the dates of which help us to determine the period of this campaign.

KEYWORDS: Greco-Persian wars, Xerxes, astronomy, Herodotus, Artemision, battlefield, eclipse, Olympic games, Lunar

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Fetterman, A.K., Evans, N.D., Exline, J.J. and Meier, B.P., 2021. What shall we call God? An exploration of metaphors coded from descriptions of God from a large US undergraduate sample. Plos one, 16(7), p.e0254626.

Abstract

People use numerous metaphors to describe God. God is seen as a bearded man, light, and love. Based on metaphor theories, the metaphors people use to refer to God reflect how people think about God and could, in turn, reflect their worldview. However, little work has explored the common metaphors for God. This was the purpose of the current investigation. Four trained raters coded open-ended responses from predominantly Christian U.S. undergraduates (N = 2,923) describing God for the presence or absence of numerous metaphoric categories. We then assessed the frequency of each of the metaphor categories. We identified 16 metaphor categories that were present in more than 1% of the responses. The top categories were “GOD IS POWER,” “GOD IS HUMAN,” and “GOD IS MALE.” These findings were similar across religious affiliations. We attempted to support our coding analysis using top-down and bottom-up automated language analysis. Results from these analyses provided added confidence to our conclusions. We discuss the implications of our findings and the potential for future studies investigating important psychological and behavioral outcomes of using different metaphors for God.

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Reynolds, P., Clausewitz and the partisan: Accounting for unlimited enmity in the twenty-first century. Journal of Military Studies. (direct link to pdf file)
https://doi.org/10.2478/jms-2021-0008

Abstract:

Napoleon harnessed unlimited enmity to transform wars from limited ones to unlimited ones. Accordingly, Clausewitz developed the Trinity to describe this source of power. However, the increasing destruction due to interstate wars has led to a decrease in this type of conflict. At the same time, there has been an increase in partisan wars. The Trinity cannot explain partisan victories or state defeats. Using social psychology to explain the relationship of the partisan to the group, this research shows how partisans harness unlimited enmity to engage in existential wars. Furthering Clausewitzian philosophy, a new analogy, the singularity, is created to describe this power. Implications and conclusions drawn are at the end of the paper.

Keywords: Clausewitz, regular war, partisan, Trinity, singularity, irregular war

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

https://www.thearticle.com/wittgenst...-and-the-poker

[Adam Strange]

Ni explained as a strategy for energy efficiency.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-be...=pocket-newtab

[FreelancePoliceman]

Yes, Kids, Cookie Monster is a Psyop

Twitter thread with more information

[Tallmo]

Carl Jung on Matter, Spirit and the human body

[Nunki]

The most interesting article I have ever read, "The Self-Simulation Hypothesis Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics:"

https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/22/2/247/htm

We modify the simulation hypothesis to a self-simulation hypothesis, where the physical universe, as a strange loop, is a mental self-simulation that might exist as one of a broad class of possible code theoretic quantum gravity models of reality obeying the principle of efficient language axiom. This leads to ontological interpretations about quantum mechanics. We also discuss some implications of the self-simulation hypothesis such as an informational arrow of time.

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Bourget, D. and Chalmers, D.J., 2022. Philosophers on philosophy: The 2020 PhilPapers survey. (direct link to pdf file)

The 2020 PhilPapers Survey

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Why Realists and Anti-Realists Disagree

[Toro]

The Kept and the Killed

By Erica X Eisen

Of the 270,000 photographs commissioned by the US Farm Security Administration to document the Great Depression, more than a third were “killed”. Erica X Eisen examines the history behind this hole-punched archive and the unknowable void at its center.

[Toro]

‘I More So Consider Myself a Con Artist Than Anything’

What Danielle Miller learned at Horace Mann and Rikers.



A spoiled brat scams people, steals their money, goes to prison for a short period of time, and gets a spread like she is some badass #girlboss criminal mastermind.

[Toro]

I Gave Myself Three Months to Change My Personality


The results were mixed.

By Olga Khazan

[Toro]

Can Personality Be Changed?

Psychologists have long debated how flexible someone’s “true” self is.

By Scott Barry Kaufman

[Adam Strange]

If you want a detailed description of historical Unix kernel functionality, a legal copy of A Commentary on the Sixth Edition Unix Operating System can be found here (http://www.lemis.com/grog/Documentation/Lions/).

From an article on the early computers, https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022...=pocket-newtab

[Poptart]

Afghanistan’s last finance minister, now a D.C. Uber driver, ponders what went wrong

[Poptart]

The grandmother and the abortion kit

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Sex and the census

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Obradovich, N., Özak, Ö., Martín, I., Ortuño-Ortín, I., Awad, E., Cebrián, M., Cuevas, R., Desmet, K., Rahwan, I. and Cuevas, Á., 2020. Expanding the measurement of culture with a sample of two billion humans (No. w27827). National Bureau of Economic Research. (direct link to pdf file)

[Metamorph]

Salman Rushdie ‘on a ventilator and could lose an eye’ after New York attack | ITV News

Hmm. Sounds vaguely familiar. Probably doesn't mean anything. If he starts claiming to be God and controlling the weather remember that your God is not one-eyed and run into the fake fire, not the fake water.

[The Reality Denialist]

Human reactions to rape culture and queer performativity at urban dog parks in Portland, Oregon

[Metamorph]

Middle-Earth: Size and Population (fictionhorizon.com)

[Metamorph]

50 Years Ago: The Reclamation of a Man-Made Desert - Scientific American

Hey Americans! Do you like Israel? Would you ever consider being more like Israel and not depleting all your natural resources?

[Metamorph]

Russia Is Right: The U.S. Is Waging a Proxy War in Ukraine - The Washington Post

[Metamorph]

Ukraine bans largest opposition party - World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org)

[Metamorph]

A look at Jewish extremism in Israel : NPR

halacha - Is it a discouraged or an unacceptable practice for a Gentile to keep the Sabbath? - Mi Yodeya (stackexchange.com)

Jews and Gentiles | Yeshivat Har Etzion

Resh Lakish also said: A heathen who keeps a day of rest, deserves death, for it is written (Gen. VIII, 22), And a day and a night they shall not rest, and a master has said: Their prohibition is their death sentence. Rabina said: Even if he rested on a Monday.

Essential Distinction
Sefer Ha-Kuzari

R. Yehuda Ha-Levi explains that just as plants are qualitatively greater that inanimate objects because they are living, and animals are qualitatively greater that plants because they have an animate soul, and humans are qualitatively greater than animals because they have an intellect, so are Jews qualitatively greater than gentiles because they have the quality of Godliness (inyan Elohi). Adam was created with this Godly quality, and he passed it on to the greatest of his descendants, and so on through Noach until Avraham. Avraham passed down that quality only to Yitzchak, and Yitzchak only to Yaakov, but Yaakov passed the inyan Elohi to all his descendants. Since then, the entire Jewish People has been characterized by this "spiritual DNA," which makes them essentially and fundamentally different from other human beings.

Sefer Ha-Tanya

R. Shneur Zalman of Liady, in the Tanya,[2] draws an even more powerful distinction between the essential nature of a Jew and that of a gentile. He explains that a Jew has two souls – a Godly soul, which partakes in some fashion in the actual substance of God Himself, and an animalistic soul, which descends from klipat noga, the evil that contains within it an admixture of divine light. Therefore, he explains, any good character trait found in a Jew reflects the essential goodness found in his soul. The soul of a gentile, however, according to the Tanya, is purely animalistic and not Godly. It descends from the evil forces that have no potential for goodness in them whatsoever. Therefore, any good deeds performed by gentiles are done for ulterior motives and cannot possibly reflect essential goodness.

Who is a Jew? No one is; people can only be Jew-ish. Thus all the ressentiment amongst the worst of the Jewish supremacists who shoot the Iron Dome at Palestinian kids who throw rocks and the double standards between how businesses operate within Israel and without.

[Metamorph]

Starbucks has a Slave Labor Problem - Fair World Project

If you weren't already against Starbucks, you should be now.

[Metamorph]

Good & Evil (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Apparently Abū ʿImran Mūsā ibn Maymūn ibn ʿUbayd Allāh pseudonym Maimonides invented the idea of natural evil which has been the single most destructive idea in history. Down with that.

[Metamorph]

Final Fantasy 7 Movie Found on Osama Bin Laden Hard Drive (gamerant.com)

Apparently, Osama bin Laden was just a 4chan type playing video games and watching anime in his cave. This actually does not surprise me. That seems like what you would get when you hang with David "Blood for the blood god" bin Myatt.

[Metamorph]

Frankism - Wikipedia

Frankism was a heretical Sabbatean Jewish religious movement of the 18th and 19th centuries,^[1] centered on the leadership of the Jewish Messiah claimant Jacob Frank, who lived from 1726 to 1791. Frank rejected religious norms and said that his followers were obligated to transgress as many moral boundaries as possible. At its height it claimed perhaps 50,000 followers, primarily Jews living in Poland, as well as in Central and Eastern Europe.^[1][2][3]

[Metamorph]

The Myth of 'Judeo-Christianity,' Explained - Hey Alma

Still mad about “Judeo-Christian calendar.” What year is it on that calendar my dude
— Jess Zimmerman (@j_zimms) November 30, 2020

[Metamorph]

Texas requires ‘In God We Trust’ signs in schools. A man wants some in Arabic. (msn.com)



How about we ask for some in Hebrew and see what happens? Let's have some In Adonai We Trust to go with our In Allah We Trust! Then the law would be entirely repealed because it would be discriminatory to allow English In God We Trust but not allow the "Judeo-Christian Hebrews" to have In Adonai We Trust signs, yet we absolutely cannot be permitted to go around writing In Allah We Trust everywhere.

Instead of using Baphomet, Temple of Satan would probably find much more success being the Temple of Hillel or whatever they would like to call themselves, or just the Masjid of Allah since apparently people are less comfortable with God in Arabic than with a statue of Satan with an erection and uncovered nipples gesturing to children now. However, they would never do either of those things.