the use of the word "hyperobject" is in fact prima facie proof that a person is an unreliable narrator of the world, and in fact even their own mental states

few know this
it is with some pleasure i inform everyone that object-oriented ontology is absolutely nuts, and the fact that it has given rise to the complete fabrication of fake objects merely for the purpose of reifying depression into a philosophical concept is the proof!
the rock does not care how it relates to the tree!
i will accept object-oriented ontology from pantheists and no one else. only pantheists are allowed to rock that strong of stuff.
i am so much fun in my theory class you would not believe how much fun i am, i have all the most fun opinions
anyways, it's very fun to be in a theory class when your theory of how to produce a theory of science is that we should observe scientists and describe what they actually do, and whatever that is, is science. this view is extremely unpopular!
the idea that we might define science as what-scientists-do is shockingly divisive! because it turns out much of what scientists do is not what people *wish* science was.
So the funny thing is, the most prominent "science defenders" like Haack end up defining scientists as just "people socially recognized as part of the institution of science" anyways! Nobody tries to define-scientists-by-traits!
See, there's also some differences here. Religion predates clergy who practice it. Art predates the modern conception of the artist. But "science" is an extremely recent concept as a distinct entity, even as "rigorous empirical inquirers" clearly predate!
So we recognize that religion is not merely what clergy do in part because we know religion predates any of the clerical institutions which exist: but the role of scientists clearly predates the institution of science as a concept, so it's a bit different!
And indeed science as a term really does come into being as a way to describe what a group of people are already doing! "Natural science" as distinct from other fields of knowledge emerges in the 18th/19th centuries! Very recently!
I'm saying: "scientist" as a role is largely content-less. Try defining it and you'll inevitably either define-away large shares of people labeled scientists, or define-in tons of people recognized scientists don't want to share the label with.
So it's better to think of "scientist" as a fairly arbitrary category, like a club member. And science is merely "what scientists do."
The problem is many "science defenders" simultaneously want to argue that "science" is defined in ideal terms, but "scientists" are defined in basically social terms, but also that failures by "scientists" to achieve the ideals of "science" should not be seen to....
... impinge on the credibility of "science" itself. What many "science defenders" want is to have their cake and eat it too: scientists are whoever we let into our club, we represent a higher ideal, and when in fact we fail to represent it, it doesn't implicate "Science"
The problem with this account is:
1) It makes "Science" merely whatever set of ideals the speaker happens to hold (hence why debates about what "science" is are so interminable)
2) It is manifestly unpersuasive to anybody on the outside
To those on the outside, the extent to which "science" is credible has very little to do with the ideals scientists aspire to and quite a lot to do with the actual practices of science!

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More from @lymanstoneky

18 Nov
china just lowkey vanished a tennis star after she claimed a government official sexually assaulted her
seriously how are we not boycotting the olympics
Read 14 tweets
18 Nov
Your regular reminder that a major reason the US is high on both of these is that *we measure them more inclusively* than many other countries.
There are many reasons to not correct! One reason is that it's not always clear which method is better so the correct direction of correction is unclear.

Another is that we sometimes have no idea what effects may exist, because we don't have parallel measurement.
That is, sometimes two measurement techniques exist in parallel so we can see precisely how they differ in aggregate effects. But often we don't have this, so all we know is "it's different measurements so may not be comparable."
Read 41 tweets
18 Nov
The Navy is as bad as it looks.

However, the consolation is that other countries' navies are even more ruinously mismanaged!

Modern navies are just an absolute crapshoot!
Ships are very hard to protect, deploying a global navy without directly controlled colonial empires and bases requires incredible tolerance for espionage and security risks, oversight is extremely difficult, and many historic methods of disciplining naval personnel are untenable
i.e. if you look at how navies *historically* kept sailors and officers in line compared to how they disciplined soldiers on land, you'll understand that in fact preventing the navy from collapsing into disorder is a major historic problem!
Read 21 tweets
18 Nov
Um, lowkey huge paper right here (cc @swinshi @hamandcheese @Claudia_Sahm ):

25 years of CPS data suggest that bigger CTCs tend to INCREASE single mother employment. hyeinkang.com/uploads/1/3/9/…
I have not carefully checked out all the method here. And of course it COULD be that higher CTC benefits would encourage work *because the CTC has a phase-in*, whereas making it flat would change that.
But still, overall this seems to suggest that worries about CTC effects on LFP may be somewhat overstated.
Read 4 tweets
18 Nov
Very cool JMP from @lydia_assouad : quantifying the effect of Ataturk randomly-happening-to-visit your town on the odds you adopt a Turkish (i.e. nationalist) name!

Leaders matter!
dropbox.com/s/93e05vg2euks…
It's a very nifty paper. Ataturk went on a political tour around Turkey promoting stronger Turkish/secular/Republican identity. Part of that was promoting the new "Pure Turkish" language. Baby names are a nice test case for this!
Also really good controlling for confounds. Paper has data on Ataturk's interaction with/co-optation of local elites, the formation of branches of his political party, etc. It can show mechanisms, complementary effects, etc. Leaders matter, but so do institutions!
Read 12 tweets
17 Nov
Just want to note that this is how absolutely nuts the "Christian nationalism" discourse has become, that suggesting (correctly) that the US was historically a Christian nation is seen as "Christian nationalism."
The US still has treaties IN FORCE TODAY which legally declare the country a Christian nation!

It's quite literally the law!
Now, those treaties are very old and clearly those terms are no longer seen as operative--- but it is nonetheless very clearly the case that the US *at a minimum historically was* a "Christian nation" in both practical/social and also literal/legal terms.
Read 39 tweets

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