Similarly for climate change and other hot button issues such as migration.

I profit from reading these things. But indeed I hardly post because almost no one seems to end up reading it.

Good threads by physicists and mathematicians slightly beyond what I am familiar with.

Info and discussion about how recently released AI models perform on benchmarks.

Respectful and contentful discussion about AI progress between boosters, sceptics, doomers, and sometimes politicians.

No, it does have great downsides, but my honest impression is that I (still) learn much more there than over here. Bluesky would need much more diversity in ideas and expertise to fully catch up.

The issue concerns the inherent plausibility of the theistic designer hypothesis. As such, the Sober point does seem relevant.

Anyway, thanks for highlighting how you see objective value as relevant here.

You may want to tread the fine line between these options. If so, I appreciate the idea.

Or assume an intellectualized external super-creator hypothesis, with a designer characterized only in an abstract metaphysical way and completely unlike humans. Then it is not even clear what it would mean for that being to have intentions.

In my multiverse book I frame this as a dilemma for the proponent of the design argument:
Either embrace an anthropomorphic designer that is "in the world". Then it is perhaps justifiable to attribute all kinds of intentions etc. But that hypothesis is completely discredited by modern science.

And Narveson: "Bodiless minded super-creators are a category that is way, way out of control"

The more our hypotheses of intelligent designers depart from the human case, the more in the dark we are as to what the ground rules are for inferring intelligent design."

Sober puts it nicely: "Our judgements about what counts as a sign of intelligent design must be based on empirical information about what designers often do and what they rarely do. As of now, these judgements are based on our knowledge of human intelligence. ...

The idea of a non-physical meta-cosmic agent driven by concerns and intentions somehow comparable to ours is overwhelmingly likely a projection -- as such, it makes perfect sense, otherwise not. A ludicrously low prior does indeed seem adequate.

You can definitely have versions of your God hypothesis G for which your Bayesian argument holds, ones according to which there is an meta-cosmic agent capable and motivated to create a life-friendly universe. But do you have an argument why any of these versions of G merits a non-negligible prior?

Yes, and unfortunately their success is only a matter of time unless concerted action against them occurs.

Excellent list.

You're the expert, I'm not. Just trying to find out what can really be confidently inferred from your study.

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

So immigration-sceptical voters even have experience with that kind of rhetorics not being followed by effective and sustained immigration restriction. Your study is thus consistent with immigration restrictionism being a successful anti-far right strategy when pursued consistently and for long.

If any of you authors would like to respond to this, please come forward, I'd be curious: bsky.app/profile/simo...!

I worry that your analysis could be bad news for *any* attempt to drive back the far right.

-- Immigration restrictionist rhetoric short-term backfires electorally bc not credible
-- Immigration restrictionist action long-term helps electorally
-- There is no feasible alternative to immigration restrictionist action in order to long-term stop and reverse the rise of the far right.

Extremely interesting. I am not convinced that your impressive study is a sufficient basis for your substantive recommendations, though.

The following seems a serious possibility not excluded by your study:

(see next post)