Comment by nathan_compton

Comment by nathan_compton a day ago

Sorry, but I don't think that is a reasonable read. The phrase "not drawing on them may not be desirable, possible, or even meaningful" is a political statement except perhaps for "possible," which is just a flat statement that its hard to separate causal variables from non-causal ones.

Nothing in the statistical observation that variables tend to be correlated suggests we should somehow reject the moral perspective that that its desirable for a model to be based on causal rather than merely correlated variables, even if finding such variables is difficult or even, impossible to do perfectly. And its certainly also _meaningful_ to do so, even if there are statistical challenges. A model based on "socioeconomic status" has a totally different social meaning than one based on race, even if we cannot fully disentangle the two statistically. He is mixing up statistical and social, moral and even philosophical questions in a way which is, in my opinion, misleading.

jeremyjh a day ago

Or maybe your own announced bias against “rationalists” is affecting your reading of this. I agree with GPs interpretation.

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0xDEAFBEAD 18 hours ago

>its desirable for a model to be based on causal rather than merely correlated variables

Ironically, your "likes_hiphop" example would appear to be an unusually clean case of a variable that is likely to exert causal influence.

What do you think the causal effect of listening to lyrics like "Prolly leave my fuckin' show in a cop car" might be, on an impressionable teenage boy say?

From one of the most-streamed hip-hop songs of all time:

https://genius.com/Post-malone-rockstar-lyrics

https://newsroom.spotify.com/2024-05-20/best-hip-hop-songs-1...

>A model based on "socioeconomic status" has a totally different social meaning than one based on race, even if we cannot fully disentangle the two statistically.

I see no evidence Gwern disagrees with this claim. He just seems to be arguing the "cannot fully disentangle the two statistically" part.

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nathan_compton 7 hours ago

Doesn't it seem like the opposite to you? Since this is one of the most streamed songs of all time AND most kids have not "[left their] fuckin' show in a cop car" it seems that the causal power of media is small, which is pretty consistent with the literature on the subject.
The vast, vast majority of people understand the difference between media and real life. I mean I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that Post Malone is "good," either "morally" or aesthetically, but I don't think there is a strong case for lyrics, tv, or video games having a strong effect on violent behavior. But if it were the case it would be good to identify it accurately. There is plenty of violent "rock" music too, after all. The Columbine shooters weren't listening to hip hop.

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- 0xDEAFBEAD 7 hours ago
  
  >most kids have not "[left their] fuckin' show in a cop car"
  Many people commit crimes. I'll bet criminals are more likely to listen to hip hop than the population at large is.
  >it seems that the causal power of media is small
  If the causal power of media is small, why are you concerned with Gwern's article? Even if he made claims that are blatantly racist, it wouldn't matter much, since the causal power of media is small.
  >The vast, vast majority of people understand the difference between media and real life.
  Suppose 99% understand that, and 1% don't. That can still be a big relative increase in the rate of crimes which do serious harm.
  If you read the message of the song lyrics I linked, the clear implication (very common with this sort of music) is that criminal behavior will make lots of women want to have sex with you. This can easily be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Women listen to the lyrics and think to themselves "criminals sound cool and rebellious; criminal behavior is kinda hot -- all the other women are going for criminals; perhaps I will as well". Men who are trying to become attractive to women listen to the lyrics, and engage in crime alongside the other things they are doing which make them more attractive. Thus the prophecy becomes self-fulfilling, to society's detriment.
  Anyways, as an exercise, ask ChatGPT to generate a list of top gangster rap artists. Then pick a few at random and ask if they've run into trouble with the law. There's a much higher rate of lawbreakers in this group than the population at large.
  
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  nathan_compton 5 hours ago
  
  Yes, much like an AI, we can arrange a series of tokens in any order we want to create the appearance of an argument. All I'm saying is that given that many, many people listen to hip hop (which is, incidentally, a much more expansive genre than Post Malone) and very, very, few people commit violent crimes, it is clear that hip hop is probably not the proximal cause of violent crime. The vast, vast, majority of people who listen to hip hop never commit a crime. Furthermore, to the extent that social science research means anything, correlations between media and criminality have been difficult to definitively find, for example: https://www.ucanmadison.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2017_....
  I should note that if Gwern's observations about correlations are true, then a negative result should be taken seriously, since positive correlations should be easy to find. Absence of strong correlations should reasonably be taken as a sign that a definitive connection is hard to come by. Of course, any good research in this field will attempt to control for confounds and if you ask me personally, I'm not optimistic about that prospect. But to the extent that this research says anything at all, the case isn't strong.
  I'm not even saying you are per se wrong - it does seem reasonable that media that glorifies lawlessness might increase lawlessness. But if it does, it clearly only does so in a small population which also share a lot of other factors (like poverty, for example). Given that most humans enjoy hip hop without negative consequences, focusing on it as a potential intervention seems off base. A ban on hip-hop would be very unlikely to reduce crime, but a decrease in poverty would probably do so (accepting that we can't really figure out how to do that). A focus on hip hop is extremely flaccid.
  
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naasking a day ago

> Nothing in the statistical observation that variables tend to be correlated suggests we should somehow reject the moral perspective that that its desirable for a model to be based on causal rather than merely correlated variables, even if finding such variables is difficult or even, impossible to do perfectly.

Perfect is the enemy of good. That it would be desirable to construct a model based on causal variables is self-evident, but we don't have those, and if a correlative model can demonstrably improve people's material conditions, even if conditioned on variables you find "distasteful", what is your argument that such a model shouldn't be used?

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nathan_compton a day ago

It really depends on a lot of things, frankly. For one thing, we, as a society, aren't optimizing for short term material conditions exclusively. The abstract dignity of not letting arbitrary variables determine important aspects of our lives might outweigh certain material benefits.

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- naasking 3 hours ago
  
  I think abstract principles deserve extreme skepticism. Pursuing material improvements will yield conditions that improve dignity, but pursuing dignity will not necessarily yield material improvements. Dignity is a luxury for those who don't have to desperately scrounge to live. There's a long and sad history of ignoring people's immediate material conditions to pursue some utopian vision of what "ought" to be. Unless there's some argument that sacrificing immediate material improvements will (not may) yield large scale material improvements, we're right back at the perfect being the enemy of the good.
  
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