r/SneerClub archives
newest
bestest
longest
Only a high-decoupler capable of abstract thought can appreciate Dawkins's brilliant thoughts on eugenics (https://twitter.com/primalpoly/status/1229768306598404098?s=19)
50

I have determined that there are only two kinds of people in the world and I, purely coincidentally, belong to the better one.

[deleted]
no, spheres and non-spheres

For the high decouplers, the dawkins post was an opportunity to take a charitable interperation of “eugenics works” in order to defend the honour of richard dawkins.

For the low decouplers, the post was an opportunity to point out how eugenics is actually quite shithouse at “improving” a population, and is inseperable from authoritarian values, and that it’s irresponsible to casually bring up eugenics programs up as if morality is the only problem with it.

Clearly, the first people are the more rational ones here.

Most STEM-type scientists are high decouplers so they make wonderful repeat targets for vengeful online mobs who can’t distinguish entirely different modes of conversation from one another - abstract thought experiment vs public arguments tailored for political persuasion.

so by trying to understand things completely removed from the context they were said in, people come away with a flawed partial understanding colored by their own preconceptions? what an interesting concept…

[deleted]

:thinking:
My guess is because "high" has more positive connotations than "low".
I am going to start calling myself "high-reprioritising" instead of "low-achieving."

There should be a publication for high decouplers

Well, there is this @Quillette thing, herd of it?😎

Maybe, just maybe, some ideas shouldn’t be decoupled from their contexts.

That's just what a low-decoupler would say!
[Guess you have low IQ.](https://twitter.com/EnglesFrederica/status/1229837566053994496) (Joking obviously, I agree that decoupling some ideas from their context is bad. And coupling the idea of being able to decouple (I skill I have, I used to post in ssc ;) to IQ is just silly)
Why? That's intellectually dishonest
> Why? That's intellectually dishonest lololololololol
It is. Derailing a conversation like that because "lol who will get put into gas chambers" is absurd given historical Eugenics programs, most if then didn't force people to breed or mass murder the "unfit".
[deleted]
Where? Puerto Rico? Asking for links and examples. Because again most Eugenics programs weren't ethnically targeted . The US supreme Court in 1943 ruled against a Eugenic law because it *could* be used in ethnically discriminatory way (white collar crimes didn't get sterilization, blue collar crimes did, SCOTUS recognized how that could have prejudicial effects)
Hey check out this easily offended dork
So I see your don't have an answer then
Imagine being this much of an easily offended dork
Imagine derailing a point that you can't answer by going #triggered like Steven Crowder
This isn't your research group you dork, do your own homework.
you make a claim, prove it. it's how it works
My claim was that he was an easily offended dork, proven by how easily offended and dorkish his responses were.
Ad hominem. Stick to the original subject.
That was my original subject, jeez, can't you read?
My subject on Eugenics preceded your subject so my subject had precedent. You clearly don't know how to read
Why are you still posting in this thread?
[deleted]
Given I said "most Eugenics programs" in the early paragraphs, uh no. You haven't proven that. So yes this s Is good faith argument. You make a claim fucking prove it, don't hide behind "lel google it"
[deleted]
>\> So? I don't care, all eugenics programs were (and are) still awful and racist and they can't be divorced from their awful and racist context. Care to explain the racism in Chinese eugenics programs? ​ >\> What claim was made? Use quotes i posted originally >\>>It is. Derailing a conversation like that because "lol who will get put into gas chambers" is absurd given historical Eugenics programs, most if then didn't force people to breed or mass murder the "unfit".

Worth noting that Colin Wright was a grad student of Jonathan Pruitt, the Canadian professor who was recently caught fabricating data on a vast number of papers going back to his dissertation.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00287-y

High decouplers are incapable of considering ideas as part of a larger context, even when this would help them make sense of things. This, of course, actually means they’re smarter, because,

"because," is most rationalist explanations.

Lol people are still using the decouplers thing

Geeze, guys, that was so 2018

What’s the origin of this whole decoupling idea? Is there an academic paper or what? All I can find is links to rationalist posts.

origin is: i'm too socially inept to understand context therefore I will make up a rationalist superpower named "high decoupling" and attribute it to that.
I don't think they're unable to understand context, just unwilling. After all, when they think the context favors their point of view, they seem more than willing to include it in the conversation.
i'm pretty sure it was coined by alexander in an ssc post a year or two back. its part of his series of dichotomies for people, where he miraculously lands on the "good, intelligent" side every time and all those icky red and blue tribe people land on the other side. E: see below, propagated by sarah constantin; she attributes the idea of decoupling to keith stanovich who i'm not familiar with, and i don't know which of them started dividing the population into high/low decouplers.
Somebody should point out Gwyneth thought of it first
Wasn't it actually some wannabe SSC spinoff blog? I vaguely remember laughing at it back when it "happened"
ah, yeah, hunting it down it appears to have been coined by sarah constantin (original sneer post [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/8fp3jk/high_decouplers_and_low_decouplers/)). i was probably getting it confused with meta and object level thinkers, which is the exact same dichotomy just with different words.
They have a million different words for morlock
Seems like it could be actually be useful as an early indicator of sociopathic tendencies.

Something something wait til you meet your first hectocoupler

Looks like the tweet is gone, what was it?

It's still there for me. You may be blocked by @primalpoly.
lmao I've never even responded to any of his tweets, but turns out I'm blocked
sounds like low decoupler behavior to me

I thought about this thread when Bernie Sanders made his comments about Cuba.

This is what I mean when I say that we are all couplers and decouplers, and we use those tools as we need to. People who like Sanders are decoupling in this situation: he’s just talking about Cuba’s healthcare and education system, that doesn’t mean he’s praising Castro or his authoritarianism as a whole. But people who dislike Sanders are coupling: how dare Sanders brings up Cuba without viciously condemning every aspect of it? Doesn’t he know how offensive he is being to millions of Cuban-Americans? You can’t separate policies from the whole!

What if you just changed the wording? Hi/lo makes it seem like one is worse than the other. You have high-decouplers and high-couplers. One group is great at isolating dots and the other skilled at stringing them together.

I'll let you in on a secret. Those terms aren't used to actually provide any clarity or insight, but rather to flaunt intellectual prowess and superiority.
Is there any proof that 1. These groups exist 2. We are able to diagnose them through stupid internet arguments ?
I think we're all a mix of decouplers and couplers. There are some guys like Robin Hanson or Jordan Peterson who are slanted to either side, but in general, I think that people will use whatever tools they want to defend their argument.
Is that based on anything besides your own intuition?
My experience and my interpretation of what the terms mean
Fascinating.