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CowperKettle
CowperKettle
1:59 AM
@Robusto We have a saying: 9 months of winter, and the rest is summer
 
 
3 hours later…
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
4:35 AM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer (86): What is the correct punctuation for a repeated word? by AllenTsai on english.SE
 
 
4 hours later…
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
8:57 AM
@Robusto I'd rather read every note in a flute part than read the entire transcript here.
@Robusto also you posted that exact same thing before, saying that exact same thing.
And by "exact same" I mean a completely different recording that sounded completely different.
But it did make the same point alright.
See, I know all that because I actually read what you post. Unlike yourself.
Jul 4 '18 at 19:50, by Robusto
@RegDwigнt You wanna hear a kickass violin? Check out this recording:
And then we talked about it for two hours like.
So who's the slacker now. (Well, still me, that's my thing you can't have it. But I just want you to say it.)
 
 
3 hours later…
Færd
Færd
12:01 PM
@Mitch The contingent military connotation would be because of the fact that this term is used more often in that kind of context. What I meant by "literal" was the bare meaning of the term stripped of any contextual appendages.
 
Robusto
Robusto
12:32 PM
@RegDwigнt Haha, interesting. The weird thing about this is that I was chatting with someone in Discord last night and they linked this most recent version to me as a prime example of virtuoso, which was a teach your grandma to suck eggs moment. And I simply forgot I'd mentioned Grumiaux's incomparable stylings to you before.
FWIW, I prefer the version they linked. It's an earlier version, so maybe fresher? I dunno.
But slacker? Pfft. Just because I'm retired doesn't mean I'm slacking. It only means I'm not getting paid for it.
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in body (99): What is an Instant Medical Loan? by Elawoman on english.SE
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch That's just an Itdamn mistake.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
1:02 PM
@Volrix it's "pay it forward" but with revenge
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:25 PM
Imagine if Proust had written To Kill A Mockingbird ...
Or Virginia Woolf. Or Jane Austen.
@RegDwigнt: Speaking of the "I say Alyekhin you say Alyokhin" issue discussed previously (see, again not a slacker) I just heard agadmator use the former in one of his vids.
Not sure if agadmator is a Russki (I'd peg him as Balkan, but you never know) so this data point proves nothing, but is interesting nonetheless.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto Imagine if Stan Lee had written the Bible.
Maybe just Samson and Delilah.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch What, he didn't?
 
Mitch
Mitch
I'd watch that movie
 
Robusto
Robusto
I think you already have.
 
Mitch
Mitch
1:41 PM
So are there going to no longer be anymore Marvel movies? Is the 'story' over?
Sure, some Captain Marvel and Black Widow and a few more Guardian of the Galaxies.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@RegDwigнt: Now here's another version where he pronounces it like an American. Get it straight, agadmator!
@Mitch Spoiler alert: Superman didn't really die. He comes back to life with alarming regularity.
And yes, I know Superman is a DC character, but it's the same story.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto Actual Spoiler Alert: The latest Marvel movie tied up so many loose ends that it was like the final episode in a decade long series of movies.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch OK, so you're suggesting that Marvel is going to stop making movies about these box-office-busting guys just because that makes narrative sense?
Words like integrity come into play here, I suppose, and that is probably the first thing to go when money is involved.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto Yes. People don't want money, they want to provide good art.
 
Robusto
Robusto
That ship already sailed.
 
Mitch
Mitch
1:52 PM
The meta-story is that when Marvel wanted to make a movie in 2005, by contract at the time they didn't have Spiderman or (I forgot the other big Marvel names) and so they settled grudgingly on slapping together something about this minor Ironman character with an out of date actor (Robert Downey Jr), and somehow magically it all turned around for them.
@Robusto Spoiler Alert Alert: Superman? Captain Marvel? Harry Potter? At some point, they have so many powers they can do literally anything. Why wait until near the end of the movie to solve everything for everybody (and even then they don't, they still try to punch people in the face and it doesn't work).
Universal superpowers/magic can do anything, especially make a story boring because they solve the problem entirely in a second.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
You really watch those films?
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus Not I.
Aug 2 '18 at 15:26, by Robusto
I won't see it. I don't see comic-book movies anymore unless Gal Gadot is in them.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
OK.
I've watched the "new" Thundercats animated series.
 
Robusto
Robusto
I don't even know what the Thundercats are.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
It was nostalgically fun (reminds me of my childhood) but otherwise low quality.
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:00 PM
I also don't go to see films that have gratuitous explosions in them.
Or movies that fetishize guns.
Just ... not ... interested.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
Or movies that fetishize gratuitous gun explosions
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto Yeah, lots of army propaganda in Hollywood.
I generally don't watch Hollywood stuff.
You know what I also hate?
 
Robusto
Robusto
No.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
Pineapple on pizza?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
2:03 PM
How people in many hypercommercial television series shoot at each other like mad, and the protagonists never get hit, even though they should be dead ten times.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
Pfft, that was like ten years ago though.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus That's another issue, and a bad one. It suggests guns aren't really dangerous, that they're just a lot of fun.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Or how they hit each other's heads with fists or even hard objects many times without collapsing. Or suffering debilitating brain damage.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
Now they get a minor scar in the left arm
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto Exactly.
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:04 PM
It's part of what I mean about fetishizing guns.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Yes.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
I'm just gonna say yes because it's so harmonic in here right now
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
We watched the final episode of Star Trek Discovery, and some of the human characters get pounded in the head by a supernaturally strong being and by metal objects. Like forty times in five minutes.
@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Good boy.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus I've said the same thing many times, though not here. Someone gets hit in the head with a tire iron and they just shrug it off and go on to fight (and win).
In reality just getting hit in the face with a fist can literally kill you.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ But when the gun explodes in your face as a necessary plot point, that I'd totally see.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
2:07 PM
Oh, another thing I hate about many supercommercial series is how the decisive moment in an episode will often be a hand-to-hand battle, as in a fist or possibly sword fight. I hate that! Not only is it super boring to watch (just like a firefight), but it is completely unrealistic.
The future of the Federation of Planets ought not to be decided by a fist fight!
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
@Mitch Oh IIRC that happens in DC's animated Batman: Under the Red Hood
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
When you have space ships with inestimable power.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Apr 27 '13 at 13:29, by Robusto
Don't start pulling at that thread or the universe will start to unravel.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus Wait... you're expecting realism?
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
@Cerberus YES! There should be kicks.
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:08 PM
In this case the Marvel Universe will start to unravel.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus They should have MMA rules instead.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
Jinx
 
Mitch
Mitch
dammit
 
Robusto
Robusto
Just once I'd like to see Batman or Superman tap out.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus There are other films?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
2:09 PM
@Mitch 1. I am expecting realism according to the laws in operation in that universe. Not inconsistency. 2. When I watch a science-fiction series in the far future, I'm not looking for long fist fights to be the most important event in many episodes.
@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ SILENCE!
 
Mitch
Mitch
In It's a Wonderful Life, there's a fist fight of sorts.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
@Robusto To be fair, Nolan's Batman does tap out quite often. Both physically and emotionally
 
Robusto
Robusto
So who said life is fair?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I can deal with a short phaser fight.
 
Mitch
Mitch
George Bailey hits the husband of Zuzu's schoolteacher because the (George yelled at the husband on the phone). It's kind of dramatic.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
2:11 PM
I'd trade the silly emotional family drama they often have for phaser fights if I could.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus makes notes
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Good.
Remember, Medusa is my kin.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus I totally agree. But that's my point about superpowers and magic. They're just used as ways to maneuver the plot in unimaginative ways.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus You should actually accept all this the way the Greeks accepted silly tales about the gods. Certainly the viewing public does. And even worse, they argue about all this stuff ad infinitum.
 
Mitch
Mitch
And fistfights in stories are like the narrative equivalent of sports. There's no depth to it at all, just this guy is winning, now this guy, oh no it's the other guy, who are you rooting for, and then the protagonist wins. Always
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:13 PM
The real problem with God, by the way, is that he's boring. Just like Superman.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Well, yes, if they are used as dei ex machina. But, if they are part of the rules according to which that world operates, they can be nice and interesting.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Except for Rocky... and Raging Bull.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto I don't accept that blasphemy either!
@Mitch Exactly!
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
Have you watched Creed? I've downloaded it but haven't watched it.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Sports, that's it: it is boring and uninteresting for the same reason.
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:15 PM
@Cerberus Which part is blasphemy?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto Yes.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
Have you watched Warrior? I haven't downloaded it but have watched it
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto EVERY PART
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto Exactly. Comes in at the last moment to solve things literally Deus ex machina.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus The piety is strong in you.
 
Mitch
Mitch
2:15 PM
@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Do you want spoilers?
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch Not on my car, if that's what you were thinking.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
@Mitch No I'm not a car
 
Robusto
Robusto
Jinx
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I don't enjoy watching something that does not involve intrigue, imagination, analysis, or seriously well-constructed emotional issues.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
You're lucky, faster internet
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:16 PM
@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Also faster typing, probably faster thinking too.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
Now that's inconsistent by my universe's rules. Let's have a fist fight
With exploding guns.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
The very worst kind of story is one where everything is completely unpredictable and outside of any system, and where many scenes are physical.
I also hate physical humour. So boring and cringe-worthy.
People hiding in a closet.
People slipping over banana skins.
I also hate people who behave entirely without reason.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ It's pretty much the same as Rocky. With some slots filled in by mostly similar things. Instead of running up the stairs of the Museum of Art in Philadelphia with a bunch of kids, Creed runs down the middle of the street with a bunch of kids.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
Look at it from the banana's POV
 
Mitch
Mitch
I mean, it's done well.
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:18 PM
@Cerberus It can be done well. But that takes genuine artistry.
Jinx
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Just today, there is the banana affair in Poland:
@Robusto I have never seen it.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus Wait, you're showing uncircumcised bananas.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I think that's partly what the affair is about.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus That's realistic. Lots of people hide in there. The clothes on hangers provide most of the cover.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus Sure you have. Think Monty Python ...
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
2:19 PM
And what these women are protesting against.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
@Cerberus Magnificent. 500 years later, historians will tell 21st-century people looked like this.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto That part of MP I really don't like.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus Falling down is one of the universals of humor.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch I find that utterly boring, alas.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus That's what life is. No one knows what they're doing and you can't see inside their heads so it is all unrealistic.
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:20 PM
@Cerberus Physical humor isn't all about banana peels, or pratfalls, or pokes in the eyes.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto What I like about MP are the Jewish sects arguing, or Romanes eunt domus.
Actually, I don't know them that well.
But the physical stuff?
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus Life of Brian is the best of the MP pix, to be sure.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Meaning of Life has a lot to it.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus They weave it in quite artfully, so maybe you miss it.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch On the contrary: in good drama, we understand the protagonists and why they must do as they do.
@Robusto Perhaps. I don't know them that well.
 
Mitch
Mitch
2:22 PM
@Cerberus OK. That's unrealistic.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I'm iffy about absurdism as well. I don't always like it.
@Mitch NOU
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus protesting against... circumcision? or the opposite?
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
@Mitch Actually
No one tell him.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch All of the Biggus Dickus scene is underlaid by physical humor. Think "Fwow him to the gwound" ... and the guard trying to keep from laughing.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto You don't need to convince me.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
2:24 PM
@Mitch Against the reactionary Polish government censoring art from the 70s in a museum.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Ohhhh... suggestive banana art
That's kind of weak beer, isn't it?
or small bananas.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch Sorry, I misapplied the reference mechanism.
In my defense, the page scrolling sometimes shifts an unintended message under the mouseclick.
 
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ
2
Q: Unicorn Meta Zoo #2: What is the role of moderators?

Jon EricsonWelcome to the second episode of Unicorn Meta Zoo, a brand new podcast by members of the Stack Exchange community team. If you want to avoid spoilers, jump straight to the audio. Participants We're talking about moderation and how it's different on Stack Exchange than on forums. Links Ou...

discussion podcast unicorn-meta-zoo
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto Which is funny because I found that one of the more off-putting scenes. Making fun of a speech impediment. It just didn't do it for me.
 
Robusto
Robusto
It's pretty much British public school humor writ large.
@Mitch Weally? I wated it vewy highwy.
 
Mitch
Mitch
2:32 PM
The People's Front of Judea scene was good. You are all individuals scene. Romani ite something.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Domum.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Domi?
 
Robusto
Robusto
Ask @Cerb. He can conjugate like a champ.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Also decline
 
Robusto
Robusto
But it resolves to "Romani ite domum* in the film.
 
Mitch
Mitch
2:33 PM
2nd declension ablative/locative? @Cerberus?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Those were exactly the scenes I mentioned.
@Mitch It is domum, the accusative of direction that is used with cities, small islands, and a handful or common nouns.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus Oh Latin.
Consistent until it is not.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus Does Sicilia count as an insula?
 
Mitch
Mitch
an insula pequeña?
(also removed)
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Like all other languages!
@Robusto Not normally. But perhaps examples of locative Siciliae can be found: the Romans were not exactly consistent.
See also this question:
9
Q: Which islands appear in the locative?

TKRTextbooks, when describing the use of the locative, often say it's used with the names of "cities and small islands" (as well as a few nouns like rus). What counts as a "small island"? Wikipedia says that "The Romans considered all Mediterranean islands to be small except for Sicily, Sardinia, C...

morphologia locativus
By the way, the accusative of direction (to a place) and the locative (at a place) are completely different; they just happen to occur with the same class of nouns.
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:49 PM
@Cerberus Good answer. I upvoted you because you deserve better than 8.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Oh, gratias tibi ago.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Know why I remember ite as the imperative?
Because it was used in the Catholic liturgy in Ite missa est, (translated as "Go, the mass is ended") which was my favorite part.
 
Mitch
Mitch
My favorite part is "...and some light refreshments are available in the rectory"
Or even better "Let's skip and go straight to brunch"
 
Robusto
Robusto
Those aren't in the liturgy, exactly ...
 
Mitch
Mitch
What?
What is this 'liturgy' thing you're speaking of? That's not a real word, is it?
It sounds like the cough you make after you've had a cold for a while, have mostly recovered but every so often a big wad of phlegm comes up with it.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
2:55 PM
@Robusto Your lovely Catholic school.
-urgy means "work".
Same root as ergon "work, deed".
Which used to be wergon until phonological changes.
 
Mitch
Mitch
And bituminous means you have two tums.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
The word orgy, from orgeia "anger", is also related.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus Where we get erg as a unit of energy, no doubt.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
So an orgy is really a lot of work.
@Robusto Yes!
 
Mitch
Mitch
And 'urge'?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
2:57 PM
Also related!
 
Mitch
Mitch
Yay!
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Yay indeed!
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus Why I take sexual encounters serially.
 
Mitch
Mitch
how about 'organism'?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Does your wife know?
@Mitch I think that is also related.
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:59 PM
@Cerberus She is the terminal bus, so to speak.
 
Mitch
Mitch
How about 'spoon'?
That's gotta be in there somewhere.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
An organ, from organon "tool", is also from the same root.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Gather enough sound changes and really there's only one root.
'hmm'
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus So where do opus and opera come in?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Ablaut (a change between e, o, and zero vowel) is common in older Indo-European language forms.
 
Mitch
Mitch
3:00 PM
or is it 'huh?'?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto Those are Latin. I suspect they're unrelated.
S between vowels usually becomes r in Latin, which is called rhotacism. That explains the r in the declined forms of opus.
 
Mitch
Mitch
The latest language typology thing in the news, in the 'F is for agriculture' news, was that proto-indo-european did not have f/v because they were pastoral or hunter/gatherers.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus Declined forms are the opposite of accepted forms, right? ^_^
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Opus is related to opulent and copious, and German üben.
@Robusto I see I have nothing to teach you any more about Latin grammar.
@Mitch Uhh how does that follow?
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus well, maybe not follow but followed. because lacking an 'f' in a (indiginous) language is correlated with lack of grains to eat (or something like that) (that's what the recent paper that was popularized was about), it then follows that in the reconstruction of PIE, not having f/v, implies that they were more likely not to have grain (or agriculture) back then, which is presumably corroborated by archaeology.
from last month
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
3:14 PM
@Mitch But why would people eating grains not have a letter f?
Surely there are other letters that are more difficult to pronounce when your teeth are rotting away.
 
Mitch
Mitch
3:27 PM
@Cerberus They explain in the original papers and possibly these popularizations, something to do with grain use making the jaw produce an overbite(where it is easier to do a labiodental.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Hmm
Extraordinary assertions require extraordinary evidence?
 
Mitch
Mitch
It's interesting because it is a rare example of culture modifying phonology.
all the other phonemes are somewhat arbitrary in their distribution.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
And how come they could still pronounce the labials and dentals?
 
Mitch
Mitch
wait... tonal languages seem to appear only in hot, humid areas.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
At a glance, all this sounds a bit like Lana the lawyeress.
 
Mitch
Mitch
3:30 PM
@Cerberus the difference is between no overbite (top front teeth banging directly on bottom front teeth) vs a little (the bottom front slightly behind the top front). Dentals aren't relevant (that's the tongue and the front teeth). Bilabials should still be possible though.
@Cerberus It does sound a little weird (I don't recognize your reference though). A famous phonetician, Charles Hockett, published a paper late in his life (mid eighties?) that proposed the hypothesis and supported it with maps but was honestly skeptical of it (because it sounds weird and counter to the trend of most data).
But the recent Science article must have done a lot more data analysis to give more support to it.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
3:56 PM
@Mitch That was the study that proved people called Lana were more likely to be lawyers, George geographers, and a slew of other FOREnames.
It was statistically sound.
@Mitch Hmm.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus Sure that sounds like 'popular' science, but the 'f' study people seemed to be sufficiently self skeptical.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
> In a 2002 paper in the journal Attitudes and Social Cognition, psychologists from the State University of New York at Buffalo, led by Brett Pelham, found that people’s first and last names may have an impact on the jobs they end up in, thanks to a phenomenon called “implicit egotism.”
@Mitch It's not even "popular" science.
It's apparently mainstream social psychology.
> For example, according to 1990 census records, the names Jerry, Dennis, and Walter respectively ranked 39th, 40th, and 41st in frequency for male first names. Taken together, the names Jerry and Walter have an average frequency of 0.416%, compared with a frequency of 0.415% for the name Dennis. Thus, if people named Dennis are more likely than people named Jerry or Walter to work as dentists, this would suggest that people named Dennis do, in fact, gravitate toward dentistry.
This is the case. A nationwide search focusing on each of these specific first names revealed 482 dentists named D…
From the academic article.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus It sounds like junk-food for the mind but if the statistics holds up then. A tendency isn't a force. If you decide to name your kid Dennis, there's no guarantee they'll become a dentist, just a -very slight- tendency.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Well, the statistics show he is about 100% more likely to become a dentist!
 
Mitch
Mitch
It's the difference between relative risk and absolute risk.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:07 PM
There are 482 dentists instead of the expected 265 or so.
 
Mitch
Mitch
One may twice as likely to die of heart disease if you eat bacon every day, than someone who does not. But if the absolute risk is .002% and .001%, then you should be worried about other things first.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Very true. And that is essential information that any study asserting effects from doing x should put in the abstract. Which they rarely do.
But do you want to know a secret?
That entire study about the names was crap.
When you take into account that certain names are less popular now than in the past, so that older people are more likely to be called George and Dennis or whatever, the correlation disappears.
The study has thus been debunked into the ground by other scientists.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus Editors optimize for headlines, they have to leave out something.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch But it should at least be in the abstract, and in the newspaper article, which it is usually not.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus There's no guarantee that it was always going to be crap.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:14 PM
No, but lots of articles with extraordinary claims turn out to be crap.
Especially in the field of social psychology with strong claims.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus 'X% as likely as the other' is relative risk.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Yes, so the absolutely difference should be in the abstract and in the newspaper article.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Even when newspapers mention a number of any kind they fail to say 'with respect to' some baseline, like the average.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
In percentage points.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus The signal is very small there, and lots of noise.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:16 PM
What signal?
 
Mitch
Mitch
And suppose that social science is doing there job as well as they can -and- communicating it well, the popular media doesn't care, so they just go for the sensational headlines.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
there is a tendency for tri-cephalic hounds to guard the gates of Hades, until you take into account there's only one.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus individual differences in social psychology.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
So the main take-away here is that you need both statistics and a thorough understanding and testing of the underlying mechanism, for scientific proof. Soc. psy. often limits itself to statistics, which makes it crap.
And they put in a vague untested theory in the conclusion as to what the mechanism would be, without any claims that that is true.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus crapp ier than say physics
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:18 PM
@Mitch It is a double problem, yes, but one part seems to be a fundamental one is many soc. psy. articles.
@Mitch Much.
 
Mitch
Mitch
mechanisms are hard in sociology because you can't dissect it easily and point to the tumor and say "That's why"
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I'm not talking about sociology.
I don't think there is this big of a problem in sociology.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus Sociologists are part of the big replicability movement (along with psychology) and other 'light' sciences.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
So far as I know, sociologists don't make claims as bold as soc. psy.?
It's quite a different discipline, isn't it?
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus I'm not sure what you're talking about then. I lump Sociology and social psychology together, and probably some others too
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
4:21 PM
as opposed to all the dark sciences. the cruel, mysterious sciences who destroy to study
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Sociologists are more about culture and society, whereas soc. psy. makes claims about individual behaviour, doesn't it?
 
Mitch
Mitch
There's a lot of overlap of both subject and methods.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I admit I'm not well versed in sociology. But I have never seen the kind of wild claims there that soc. psy. often makes.
@MattE.Эллен Like Dr Mengele?
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
@Cerberus or the Large Hadron Collider. won't someone think of the hadrons?
 
Mitch
Mitch
so aggressive
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:24 PM
Archaeology sometimes makes wild claims; but that is different. It and we are fully aware that archaeologists must speculate, so they don't make definite claims, certainly not about individual behaviour. And they are all about mechanics and not so exclusively focused on statistics. In other words, archaeology isn't trying to be an exact science, which soc. psy. is.
And which it shouldn't.
@MattE.Эллен Always those large hadrons. Surely they can fend for themselves? It's the little hadrons we should be worried about.
They shouldn't watch child porn or drink coffee or masturbate or plot terrorist attacks.
 
Mitch
Mitch
That escalated pretty quickly
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Oops.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
I always found the soc. psy. claims to be counter intuitive. now, I was an undergrad, so I was probably wrong, but unlike the other fields we studied, it always seemed like it was overreaching
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Well, there you have it.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
@Cerberus they shouldn't but if they don't do it under supervision they'll do it without, and then where will we be?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:28 PM
@MattE.Эллен Exactly! And in fact they do often overreach, as seen by the large number of failed reproductions, retractions, and just a general lack of research into the actual mechanisms. Those are often a mere afterthought in their articles. Or they are just utterly vague and unproven.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus now I feel bad for having drunk coffee a few times.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@MattE.Эллен You liberal!
@Mitch Are you small?
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
Also, this was between 1999 and 2003, so I'm sure things have improved since then
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Perhaps.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus And if I am? I blame my parents.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
4:29 PM
@Cerberus and loving it, baby!
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Oh, and somehow there is a similar problem about focusing on statistics for proof too much in the medical sciences, I have read. Far too many retractions.
@Mitch They should have picked a different body from the catalogue for you?
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
time to go!
 
Mitch
Mitch
@MattE.Эллен Does that make you Gen X or Millenial? Does that apply there? Does it apply anywhere?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@MattE.Эллен Next thing you're going to say we can't end drugs and prostitution by simply outlawing them!
Adieu.
@Mitch I think millennials are supposed to be born between 1980 and ca. 1995?
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus There are more retractions lately because there has been a change toward more rigorous statistics, showing that previous stats (or the study design itself) weren't done properly.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:31 PM
Millennials are those infected by the millennium bug at a tender age.
@Mitch I am talking about medical articles specifically, which have proven of a lower quality on average than previously thought.
Lots of irreproducible conclusions.
@Mitch But that is good, of course.
 
Mitch
Mitch
The famous 2005 article by Ioannidis how 75% of medical articles are false positives (because of stats misinterpretation.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Right.
Axiom: since you can never know all the factors you should filter out, you can never be reasonably sure that you have filtered out all the necessary factors out of your statistical results.
Conclusion: you can never rely on statistics alone as proof.
The next step should always be a rigorous investigation into the actual mechanisms involved.
 
Mitch
Mitch
But people are getting better at using stats. Even in social psychology.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Heh.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus what can you rely on?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:34 PM
Good.
@Mitch On a combination of statistics and understanding of the mechanisms.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus for many 'sciences' it is not celar exactly what the mechanisms are. Even with psychology, where the mechanism is presumably biochemistry, it is not at all clear all the mechanisms.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Statistics are especially important in the context of discovery, but less so in the context of proof.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Sometimes all you have is observation.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch "Clear" is relative.
 
Mitch
Mitch
and stats is sometimes the proof (or the acknowledgment of a loose tendency, one that was not known before.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:37 PM
If we understand a lot about e.g. how stress trauma works, not the exact brain cells involved, but the behaviour, the circumstances, the effects, the causes, that helps when we are trying to make a claim related to the mechanism of the post-traumatic stress syndrome. It is much less useful to make claims about that based on statistics if we don't understand much about the syndrome otherwise.
@Mitch Stats alone should never be taken as proof.
They should always be combined with an understanding of the mechanisms involved. Only then do they have value as corroborating proof.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Sure. There should always be a framework to judge against, if one is trying to test a hypothesis.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
What is a framework?
 
Mitch
Mitch
a theory
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
It has to be an understanding of the underlying mechanism. A theory may be too vague.
 
Mitch
Mitch
a theory may not have any underlying mechanisms in reality, but you still need a logical set of statement about phenomena to then test a new hypothesis.
A scientist may have no technological access to any underlying mechanism, but you can still do things beyond simple description.
 
Educ
Educ
4:45 PM
@Mitch Hi
 
Mitch
Mitch
an underlying mechanism is nice to have (like chemists have with physics), but is not necessary to predict a chemistry experiment.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
As I said above, it doesn't have to be on such a low level.
It doesn't have to be on a molecular or cellular level. Nor does it have to be deterministic.
 
Educ
Educ
@Mitch @Cerberus do you know any good website that can Help me to answer some literature questions with cheaper price
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus now we're just messing with words.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Educ Sorry, no.
 
Mitch
Mitch
4:47 PM
@Educ I have no idea about price but I've heard Sparknotes are suppose to be the modern equivalent of Clliffnotes, which were supposed to be good in my day
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch At the very least it should be more than statics alone, and a vague, speculative theory isn't enough.
 
Mitch
Mitch
What you say is not so low level, I might think is just the terminology of the theory itself.
 
Educ
Educ
@Mitch @Cerberus Thank you so much
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Indeed, I am still not talking about low level.
 
Mitch
Mitch
You don't have to know about quarks to figure out the path of a cannonball.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:49 PM
> If we understand a lot about e.g. how stress trauma works, not the exact brain cells involved, but..
3 mins ago, by Cerberus
It doesn't have to be on a molecular or cellular level. Nor does it have to be deterministic.
 
Mitch
Mitch
but also you don't have to know about much of anything to just shoot a cannonball in the air, see its positions, hypothesize a quadratic, and then test against other cannonballs. You don't even need to care about some larger theory of gravity. Just 'look at that' will suffice
@Cerberus sure, it doesn't have to be deterministic, that's where stats really helps a lot.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Noo you need to know the effects of gravity, or it's speculating into the air.
Here is a good example, I am just reading this (in Dutch).
After a certain Netflix series about suicide, a few more boys committed suicide in America than average, but in percent it is a large increase.
That is not nearly enough to conclude anything.
You need to research the supposed mechanism, that a series about suicide could cause people to imitate it.
You need to break down the mechanism and prove intermediate steps.
There could be other factors. Other things happened that could cause suicides in that period.
And there was no increase observed in the suicide of girls. How come?
 
Mitch
Mitch
I can't judge 'not nearly enough'. I'd have to know a lot more about the study to do a 'power analysis' (determining how many instances are needed to get an expected effect).
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Even though the protagonist in the series is a girl.
@Mitch Yes, of course.
In Germany, there were also more suicide after a film or series about suicide, both times it aired, in '81 and '82.
And now we're coming to "understanding the mechanism" and "identifying intermediate steps in the mechanism": at the time, they found some suicide notes referring to the series/film, and one person wore the exact same pullover as the suicidal character in the film/series. Now we're talking. This is what I mean.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus You can be blind about effects and still have a predictive model. Sure it is more meaningful and likely more accurate to have the but a mechanism is not necessary.
@Cerberus That's a refinement to the model that they should definitely address.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:59 PM
@Mitch No: I think it is often fairly worthless.
See the Lana/lawyeress article.
 
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