Discussion with Philip Wallach; N.S. Lyons on Intellectuals and Social Change; Eric Kaufmann on ideology in K-12; Rob Henderson on personality; Andrey Mir on social media's fast reaction time
Re: “For me, this hits an outrage erogenous zone. Kids are being indoctrinated! With the worst stuff!”
The frightening part is how little such topics trigger any sort of pushback from students in the room. And I did most of school before things really got bad.
Let's take recent events in Ukraine. The Coup, the Counter Offensive, the Dam, Nord Stream.
It's simultaneously true that the social media accounts I find covering these topics are widely biased and partisan, but also true that they provide incredibly more accurate and timely information than I can find anywhere else. Trying to follow the war by watching CNN or something would be a joke.
Does one have to be able to sift through a lot of bad information and bad takes. Yeah. But for the enterprising person, the information is out there and often in real time.
It's likely the same with things like K-12 that you note with Kauffman. Yeah, Libs of Tik Tok might just be biased outrage porn...or maybe not. Maybe it's anecdata highlighting actual data.
Social media are like nukes. Powerful but dangerous.
"A limit exists to how much change and instability most people can tolerate in a short span of time. At some point, they might just collectively stop buying it, and we can all enjoy the respite of a long-overdue change recession."
I tend to doubt this, unfortunately. Entrepreneurial activism, to coin a phrase, has distributed costs, concentrated benefits.
What I think I might know and have learned in the last couple of years, from this site, reading Rob Henderson, other books, and a psychologist. There seems to be a real genetic thing called temperament that is remarkably stable across one's lifetime. It seems to have been around with a literature for at least 50 years. When it comes to temperament one's innate mood or mood patterns can be characterized as one's temperament. But one's personality and behavior despite this genetic input is not temperament because there is always a genetic and environmental interaction, even the womb is an environment that matters. I hesitate to get even farther out on a limb with regard to what I think I might know, but it is possible there are other biological determinants, possibly both genetic and environmental, that would be important inputs as well to this process over time, like testosterone and other hormone levels.
The testing for temperament seems to basically be a self report and/or observation by others and why it can be better used with regard to children and possibly with very impaired elderly people, so people who are normal cognitively functional adults and know they are neurotic or disagreeable will just report they are not and that is what is shown. It is easy to fake having a different temperament. This is part of the reason why cops and firefighters are given an MMPI. Because of the way the MMPI was derived it has scoring scales for faking as well. You don't have to actually know if they are a psychopath for sure, but if they are trying to cheat the test they can be eliminated from contention for employment. Something I believe I have learned from reading Rob Henderson is that the MMPI is a snapshot in time and if you give someone an MMPI at 20 and again at 40 years of age there will be differences. How large these differences will be I can't say, and I am not so sure they would be the same or automatically have the same range across different people based on the different genetic and environmental factors.
What surprises me most is that that author finds the 90% number "astounding." Unless he means it was lower than expected, I am not sure why it would be astounding. Other than not previously having contact with the K-12 or college system or the students coming from it, I am at a loss as to how one would find that surprising. Kids hear more about CSJ nonsense than they do about ordinary least squares, I would wager.
Great job, Arnold. I just wanted to backstop your effort with full throated support for what you are doing. Interpreting your opponents charitably yet pushing the ball forward, making the world slightly better through small steps everyday.
" I would like to see this literature evaluated for reliability. Are measures of traits reliable across time? Across measurement instrument? Do all personality psychiatrists make the same behavioral predictions concerning a given trait? etc."
I worked for a time with a foundation promoting a repackaged 'SEL' (social emotional learning) approach in Asian/African countries, aka strengths-based positive psychology and so forth. (I did not stay, in part because doing honest research [literally my job description] led to results the true believers at the top could not afford to entertain, much less accept.) Coming from a political economy and evaluation background, I found it odd that psychology tools/surveys are largely proprietary (marketed for profit and sold with restrictions), not properly or transparently validated in the first place, and at best superficially checked (by people who have no expertise in survey design and cognitive testing, etc.) for consistency across different contexts, including very sketchy cross-cultural applications. I did not stay long enough to delve into all details, but my impression is that the whole field is a pretty big mess.
I suspect our view of how gender dysphoria is generally treated aren't too far apart. Maybe not at all. But you have to get the definitions right. In most or all dictionaries, GENDER IS DIFFERENT FROM BIOLOGICAL SEX. Gender is social and cultural. It is characteristics that we rightly or wrongly associate with biological sex. They mostly correlate but they are not the same thing.
It seems to me trans have a problem not unlike what you stated. They don't see or can't handle the difference between biological sex and gender. They feel theirs have to be the same. I see no reason this is true.
Of relevance is that I'm pretty sure the laws (such as Title IX) are all written in terms of sex. But now they are being interpreted in terms of gender. Which doesn't seem right if they really are different.
It is wrong because they are different, and always have been. Gender definitions are norms, not objective facts. Norms are both a description and a social (interactive) mechanism of enforcement. Normative concepts capture both how people generally behave and the extent to which their society -- from intimates to family to community to institutions -- allows, rewards, or rejects that behavior.
Biological sex is linked to social/behavioral norms in billions of (dynamic) ways having nothing to do with literal or physical sex. What actions and attitudes would a girl versus boy "get away with" versus be rewarded for in Victorian England, frontier America, imperial China, the antebellum South, contemporary Egypt or Iran? Rough behavior in little girls (or gentleness in little boys) can be indulged or severely restricted, or anywhere in-between, and the kid so behaving may be treated differently by each parent, by their neighborhood or school pals, other peers, teachers, church family, community, etc. That individual's personality within those influences will lead him or her to absorb or reject those judgments, carving a unique personal identity that will include both masculine and feminine features, masc. and fem. defined interactively aka socially per the time, place, and other norms of the situation. And so on through everyone's lifetimes. Normal (or the 'main stream' of) human behavior in a certain time, space, and culture dynamically defines the norms in that group along with boundaries distinguishing it from other groups, including norms arguably within the particular category of gender.
Gender is phenomenologically, experientially, definitionally, and in every other way different from biological sex.
Rob Henderson would be a good guest.
Re: “For me, this hits an outrage erogenous zone. Kids are being indoctrinated! With the worst stuff!”
The frightening part is how little such topics trigger any sort of pushback from students in the room. And I did most of school before things really got bad.
I'm reminded often that social media is both:
1) Incredibly biased and deranged
2) The best source of information I have by far
Let's take recent events in Ukraine. The Coup, the Counter Offensive, the Dam, Nord Stream.
It's simultaneously true that the social media accounts I find covering these topics are widely biased and partisan, but also true that they provide incredibly more accurate and timely information than I can find anywhere else. Trying to follow the war by watching CNN or something would be a joke.
Does one have to be able to sift through a lot of bad information and bad takes. Yeah. But for the enterprising person, the information is out there and often in real time.
It's likely the same with things like K-12 that you note with Kauffman. Yeah, Libs of Tik Tok might just be biased outrage porn...or maybe not. Maybe it's anecdata highlighting actual data.
Social media are like nukes. Powerful but dangerous.
"A limit exists to how much change and instability most people can tolerate in a short span of time. At some point, they might just collectively stop buying it, and we can all enjoy the respite of a long-overdue change recession."
I tend to doubt this, unfortunately. Entrepreneurial activism, to coin a phrase, has distributed costs, concentrated benefits.
"Are measures of traits reliable across time?"
What I think I might know and have learned in the last couple of years, from this site, reading Rob Henderson, other books, and a psychologist. There seems to be a real genetic thing called temperament that is remarkably stable across one's lifetime. It seems to have been around with a literature for at least 50 years. When it comes to temperament one's innate mood or mood patterns can be characterized as one's temperament. But one's personality and behavior despite this genetic input is not temperament because there is always a genetic and environmental interaction, even the womb is an environment that matters. I hesitate to get even farther out on a limb with regard to what I think I might know, but it is possible there are other biological determinants, possibly both genetic and environmental, that would be important inputs as well to this process over time, like testosterone and other hormone levels.
The testing for temperament seems to basically be a self report and/or observation by others and why it can be better used with regard to children and possibly with very impaired elderly people, so people who are normal cognitively functional adults and know they are neurotic or disagreeable will just report they are not and that is what is shown. It is easy to fake having a different temperament. This is part of the reason why cops and firefighters are given an MMPI. Because of the way the MMPI was derived it has scoring scales for faking as well. You don't have to actually know if they are a psychopath for sure, but if they are trying to cheat the test they can be eliminated from contention for employment. Something I believe I have learned from reading Rob Henderson is that the MMPI is a snapshot in time and if you give someone an MMPI at 20 and again at 40 years of age there will be differences. How large these differences will be I can't say, and I am not so sure they would be the same or automatically have the same range across different people based on the different genetic and environmental factors.
Re the light triad - I doubt many people can honestly evaluate themselves.
Imagine:
"Are you nice? Are you honest? Do you have faith in humanity?"
Who isn't perfectly justified in their own mind?
What surprises me most is that that author finds the 90% number "astounding." Unless he means it was lower than expected, I am not sure why it would be astounding. Other than not previously having contact with the K-12 or college system or the students coming from it, I am at a loss as to how one would find that surprising. Kids hear more about CSJ nonsense than they do about ordinary least squares, I would wager.
Re: light triad: it is impressive the lengths we are going through to reinvent christian ethics.
Great job, Arnold. I just wanted to backstop your effort with full throated support for what you are doing. Interpreting your opponents charitably yet pushing the ball forward, making the world slightly better through small steps everyday.
" I would like to see this literature evaluated for reliability. Are measures of traits reliable across time? Across measurement instrument? Do all personality psychiatrists make the same behavioral predictions concerning a given trait? etc."
I worked for a time with a foundation promoting a repackaged 'SEL' (social emotional learning) approach in Asian/African countries, aka strengths-based positive psychology and so forth. (I did not stay, in part because doing honest research [literally my job description] led to results the true believers at the top could not afford to entertain, much less accept.) Coming from a political economy and evaluation background, I found it odd that psychology tools/surveys are largely proprietary (marketed for profit and sold with restrictions), not properly or transparently validated in the first place, and at best superficially checked (by people who have no expertise in survey design and cognitive testing, etc.) for consistency across different contexts, including very sketchy cross-cultural applications. I did not stay long enough to delve into all details, but my impression is that the whole field is a pretty big mess.
"change recession". LOL
I suspect our view of how gender dysphoria is generally treated aren't too far apart. Maybe not at all. But you have to get the definitions right. In most or all dictionaries, GENDER IS DIFFERENT FROM BIOLOGICAL SEX. Gender is social and cultural. It is characteristics that we rightly or wrongly associate with biological sex. They mostly correlate but they are not the same thing.
It seems to me trans have a problem not unlike what you stated. They don't see or can't handle the difference between biological sex and gender. They feel theirs have to be the same. I see no reason this is true.
Of relevance is that I'm pretty sure the laws (such as Title IX) are all written in terms of sex. But now they are being interpreted in terms of gender. Which doesn't seem right if they really are different.
It is wrong because they are different, and always have been. Gender definitions are norms, not objective facts. Norms are both a description and a social (interactive) mechanism of enforcement. Normative concepts capture both how people generally behave and the extent to which their society -- from intimates to family to community to institutions -- allows, rewards, or rejects that behavior.
Biological sex is linked to social/behavioral norms in billions of (dynamic) ways having nothing to do with literal or physical sex. What actions and attitudes would a girl versus boy "get away with" versus be rewarded for in Victorian England, frontier America, imperial China, the antebellum South, contemporary Egypt or Iran? Rough behavior in little girls (or gentleness in little boys) can be indulged or severely restricted, or anywhere in-between, and the kid so behaving may be treated differently by each parent, by their neighborhood or school pals, other peers, teachers, church family, community, etc. That individual's personality within those influences will lead him or her to absorb or reject those judgments, carving a unique personal identity that will include both masculine and feminine features, masc. and fem. defined interactively aka socially per the time, place, and other norms of the situation. And so on through everyone's lifetimes. Normal (or the 'main stream' of) human behavior in a certain time, space, and culture dynamically defines the norms in that group along with boundaries distinguishing it from other groups, including norms arguably within the particular category of gender.
Gender is phenomenologically, experientially, definitionally, and in every other way different from biological sex.