How is an elected representative a dictator? About half of the US population voted in 2020, something like 100x the proportion of the population who voted to elect representatives at the time of the constitution. By any standard the US is far more democratic than it was then. I do agree that things should be more democratic now though.
Thanks for your comment and advice. That makes sense and I think I understand - if I want to achieve something then it takes discipline and motivation will not always exist for me to rely on. But the part I’m struggling with is why try to achieve it / do good work to begin with.
I think I’m overcomplicating things. If I want to do good work and clearly not doing good work doesn’t make me feel good, maybe it’s enough to understand that doing better work will make me feel better and that’s enough motivation in itself. Kind of like how the amateur runner doesn’t run to win a medal but because they see it’s good for them and that makes them happy.
Thanks a lot for your comment. I think you’re right that I have fallen into habits out of line with what I really value (doing good work) and fixing those is very useful advice. I can write a lot of words whining about how it’s hard for me to find motivation but if my problem is that I don’t feel like I’m doing good work then the solution can only be to actually do good work.
WRT imposter syndrome, I understand it’s very common but I don’t think it’s my current problem. Earlier in my career I did have this imposter feeling like “I don’t belong to be here with these people much smarter and more capable than me.” Now I feel like I have proven myself and I do deserve to be here, but I feel like I can’t motivate myself to live up to the potential I have. I.e. I want to do better work, and I feel like if I could motivate myself then I could, but I struggle to motivate myself. Maybe if I think more about why it is that I want to do better work then that will become a more powerful motivator for me.
I'm going to reply with the correct thing that you might not like. The correct answer would be to go to a counselor and talk with them about the problem. I always argue that people should not try finding solutions to their mental struggles online, and with any type of medical stuff. I see that you earn a good buck, and I think that you can afford a couple of sessions. So, take some time to get the courage and start it.
I appreciate the advice, but I already see a therapist. Here I was looking more for perspectives from people with personal experience.
Also I think “get a counselor” is really overused advice that can be a lot less helpful than people think. I have had 5 therapists in my life (I clearly have a lot of problems haha) and all of them except the current one I would say were actively harmful to my mental health. I think I have had particularly bad luck and am an unusual case, but the generic advice glosses over the fact that finding a therapist who works for you is not an easy task, whether you can afford it or not. If someone is asking for advice with a specific problem online, I think it’s a lot more helpful to try to help than to tell them that they need to undertake what could be a months or years long process to find a therapist who works for them, and act like that’s easy.
It absolutely is up to the law to set the standard. Wishing people would all live up to your ethical standards for no reason will always have the same result: no difference. You can wish it all you want but it’s never going to actually cause an improvement to the world.
Making unethical behavior illegal actually does have an impact on what people do because it changes their cost/reward decision
The only difference between a manufacturer’s online store and a retailer’s from customer point of view is that the retailer sells multiple brands. I guess maybe there’s some value if you want to browse different brands, but if you already know what you want then the middleman is not providing you any benefit at all over the manufacturer’s online store.
Brick and mortar is different because they’re actually maintaining a space to show the items and bringing them close to you which is a benefit to the buyer.
It’s a common experience to order something from a website and have its appearance be different from your expectations based on the photos and description. If you can see the appearance of the item you’re buying before buying that problem is impossible
I'm old enough to remember when most things I bought were bought in a physical store. I'd choose based on price, appearance and (for things like electronics) a textual description.
Today, I'll choose after reading several 2/3/4 star reviews for each of several alternatives.
This has resulted in a far lower rate of surprises and disappointments.
Other countries also have groups who have historically been discriminated against and the numbers show they do a much better job at solving these crimes than the US
It’s absolutely in the spirit of science to question an experiment’s methods and results. If you disagree with the criticism then present some evidence. An appeal to authority is pretty unconvincing considering scientists have been confidently wrong about quite a lot in the past.
Criticism must bring substance as well. Sure, anyone can sit back and say “I don’t believe this, prove it better.” But without specific claims, such criticism can’t ever be answered and the conversation is not constructive or particularly scientific.
One constructive approach to criticism here would be to take the documented imaging process and apply it to other data. If it produces results that don’t match existing evidence, that would be evidence it is flawed.
I don’t know, the criticism in OP seems pretty substantive to me. I don’t know much about this subject so I can’t really weigh in on how much the post makes sense but regardless appeal to authority is essentially the opposite of modern science. That’s why nullius in verba has been a motto of science for 300+ years.
On that point, scientists don’t need you to chastise people for questioning their authority online. I think a lot of them would be offended at the idea that you think that is what they want.
> I don’t know, the criticism in OP seems pretty substantive to me.
That's because it's a straw man argument. As has been stated elsewhere in this thread, the OP's concerns are addressed in the actual papers, which the OP conveniently ignores.
> appeal to authority is essentially the opposite of modern science.
Well, it's a good thing they're not doing that then. An appeal to authority is when you rely on an expert's prominence in one field to justify their opinions in an unrelated domain, e.g. putting credence in a software developer's pontifications on imaging black holes just because they're good at software. "Appeal to authority" doesn't apply to actual authorities in their domain – otherwise you would never be able to call expert witness at a trial, for example.
>"Appeal to authority" doesn't apply to actual authorities in their domain – otherwise you would never be able to call expert witness at a trial, for example.
Not OP but I disagree, an appeal to authority can be any authority, even those that are experts in the field. Even the most knowledgeable experts make mistakes, so appealing only to authority is not enough, granted I haven't read the paper nor have any stake in this issue, so it's possible that when the op appealed to authority they were actually trying to appeal to the arguments presented in the paper by proxy, which is fine. But a bald appeal to authority is always flawed, and expert witnesses are just a concession the law has to make to get anywhere. In the words of Richard Feynman; "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts".
> expert witnesses are just a concession the law has to make to get anywhere.
I'm not sure why you don't think that applies here? Only a slim fraction of the population is knowledgeable enough to grok the methodology of EHT.
I mean, if an appeal to authority were as you defined it, then engineers would be making an appeal to authority when they invoke Newton's laws (after all, they haven't derived them), biologists would be making an appeal to authority when they write python code (after all, they didn't write the python compiler), and so forth. Trusting that specialists can do their jobs isn't a logical fallacy – it's a type of inductive reasoning and, critically, a type of reasoning essential for the modern world to function.
>I don’t know much about this subject so I can’t really weigh in on how much the post makes sense but [...]
Then how can you say the criticism seems substantive? He brings nothing to the table to show that his criticism is valid, it's basically "I don't like, therefore wrong". The proper way criticize their paper would be conduct your own experiments using their parameters and methodologies and show that the results you obtain do not match theoretical results or results of other observations through other means.
>On that point, scientists don’t need you to chastise people for questioning their authority online. I think a lot of them would be offended at the idea that you think that is what they want.
We question their authority on this specific subject they seem to be criticizing. If you make a claim without having at least the background to support said claim, what value does it have? It's the same as a person without background in microbiology or virology claiming vaccines don't work when they don't even begin to understand the science behind it and the mountain of evidence that says otherwise.
