Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

He later reached a plurality of Republican primary polls while saying...

If you use "by" it implies causation, something no one is able to know, whereas "while" accurately points out that the two events only occurred simultaneously.

Now I'm not sure if you were just writing casually, and I fully expect that now that I've pointed out this "minor" technical shortcoming in your statement you will see my point, and I'm in no way implying that you had a strong intent to imply a cause and effect relationship between these two events...but please don't underestimate the potential significance the aggregate effect millions of seemingly minor slip-ups like this (this is only one example, and only one form) can have on the collective consciousness (aggregate of the internal mental models of all people) of the members of national and global societies when individual members of those societies are subjected to it over a long period of time. If you now think about it, it may seem like you "know" how large of an effect it has, but you actually have literally no way of knowing with certainty and accuracy what the actual effect is.

The world is incredibly complex, filled with all sorts of randomness and incredibly counter-intuitive events, but this is not how we perceive it. We perceive the world as extremely structured and organized, as if mostly everything "adds up", but only because our brain evolved to provide this illusion to our consciousness. This "good enough" illusion rose to the top over all other evolutionary paths that were tried, under the set of conditions in existence at the time they evolved. If conditions (variables) changed significantly, would we be shocked if a formerly highly trustworthy ML/AI model started producing less accurate predictions? I don't think so. Then why should we be surprised if the biological AI in our minds exhibits similar behavior when the inputs undergo a fundamental change? To me, this would be the equivalent of believing in magic of some sort.

People's (that includes you and me) perception of the world is formed based on the information they consume - all of it. It may seem (clear as day, and in full UHD+ resolution) that your personal worldview is based solely on strict evidence and logic, but the fact of the matter is, this is not how the human mind works. Sure, some minds are better at it than others, but the exact degree to which that is true is also unknowable, and making judgements on relative capability are subject to the very same phenomenon I point out.

I will wrap this up with a challenge: for the next month, read not just the news, but also all the general conversations and individual comments in social media forums from your normal perspective, and then also from this perspective. Carefully consider(!) when people are discussing a complicated, massively multivariate issue, whether the discreet observations and assertions that people make are actually knowably true, "first-principle" facts, or if they are actually predictions produced by an amazingly sophisticated AI model. This will not be easy, at all...it will be very difficult and require extreme discipline (you are literally fighting against nature), but the results may be incredibly interesting (perhaps one of the most interesting things you have encountered in years), if you are willing(!) to give it a serious try.

I intended to imply causation. I deeply enjoyed your not-at-all condescending lecture about how gullible, biased, and imprecise I am, though. In return, I will advise you not to be presumptuous about internet strangers' intelligence.

> something no one is able to know

Untrue. What if you just asked voters, "Why did you vote for Trump?" Or what if you asked them, "What issues are important to you?"

Some of the best predictors of Trump support were:

- support for building a wall to prevent undocumented immigration from Mexico[1][2]

- anxiety about immigration in general[1]

- a belief that the US is, was, and must remain a white, Christian nation[3]

In fact, a majority of Republicans see immigrants (legal or not) in general as being a net-negative on society[4].

There is a reason Trump's rallying cry was "build the wall". There is a reason he is the candidate of choicee for white nationalists (which is not to say that I'm claiming that all of his supporters are white nationalists). Most Americans agree with me, though[5].

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/25/5-facts-abo...

2. https://news.virginia.edu/content/center-politics-poll-takes...

3. https://www.prri.org/research/white-working-class-attitudes-...

4. https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2015/09/28/chapter-4-u-...

5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/05/most-amer...

Oh, ok. Would you mind then explaining in detail how it is you came to know(!) what was and was not the comprehensive, multivariate motivation of all the people who voted in Republican primary polls, and how you managed to measure/calculate accurate values for each variable (or at least this one single variable, for each person, or even the aggregate for the overall group)? I mean this question literally, not rhetorically.

> I deeply enjoyed your not-at-all condescending lecture about how gullible, biased, and imprecise I am, though. In return, I will advise you not to be presumptuous about internet strangers' intelligence.

I made no personal criticisms of you, or and presumptions about internet strangers intelligence. Rather, this is just a manifestation of the very things I was referring to.

>> something no one is able to know

> Untrue. What if you just asked voters, "Why did you vote for Trump?" Or what if you asked them, "What issues are important to you?"

a) no one has done that, at scale, and in a form where very specific conclusions (like yours) can be formed

b) even when people answer a question "truthfully", it does not necessarily reflect true cause and effect, which are largely determined by neurological processes in the subconscious mind, that even the very best neurologists/psychologists barely understand, and that even the person in possession of the mind is not privy to. As an example, does it seem you know, absolutely, that the specific things you write here are True(!), absolutely? And yet, if I ask for epistemically sound, confirmable quantitative evidence, are you able to provide any, that does not consist of, or rely heavily upon, a narrative?

> Some of the best predictors of Trump support were...

These are all attempts to measure and understand reality (based in part on some discrete "measurements", assembled into a persuasive narrative form). They are not reality itself. But, this is not to say these these measurements are not accurate - perhaps they are even very accurate - I am simply stating that it is unknown how accurate they are.