Substack cometh, and lo it is good. (Pricing)

Open Thread, 10/21/2019

Been very busy. Sorry-not sorry, about the lack of posting. This blog has gone on much longer than I would have thought when I started it back in 2002, but obviously it has to take a backseat to other things in my life now that I’m no longer in my mid-20s.

One of the most interesting facts in The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962—1976 is that there is only one case of a child turning in their parent on a capital crime for which the parent was executed. The child is now a middle-aged man and found this out in his adulthood that his was the only validated instance of this occurring.

Stop helicoptering other people’s kids. This is a real thing.

A powerful subset-based gene-set analysis method identifies novel associations and improves interpretation in UK Biobank.

Genotype imputation using the Positional Burrows Wheeler Transform.

Hide and seek: hidden genetic variance contributing to the adaptive potential of selfing populations.

Great ape mutation spectra vary across the phylogeny and the genome due to distinct mutational processes that evolve at different rates.

Polygenic risk modeling with latent trait-related genetic components.

‘Get the Hell Out of Syria. It’s Sand and Blood and Death’: Inside America’s Chaotic Retreat.

Lights. Camera. Prayer. A Mini-Hollywood Grows in Utah.

America Obsessed Over Janet Jackson. But the NFL Secretly Enraged China.

Substructured Population Growth in the Ashkenazi Jews Inferred with Approximate Bayesian Computation.

Inference of population genetic structure from temporal samples of DNA.

13 thoughts on “Open Thread, 10/21/2019

  1. Two things: a confession and a request.

    here is only one case of a child turning in their parent on a capital crime for which the parent was executed.

    The confession: I was in the second grade when my mother was preparing to leave the Soviet Union. My teacher would take me out of class and thoroughly question me about what was going on at home. What was my mother saying about America? What was she doing? In the spirit of Pavlik Morozov I told her everything. Looking back, I have no doubt that the information went straight to the local KGB.

    Fortunately, by then the Soviet system was thoroughly corrupt, my family was following the rules and took the precaution of not speaking about this in front of me. My grandfather also had some pull in my shithole of a city and my mother got out. I followed a year later.

    I still shiver when I think about what could have been if the process was taking place a decade or so earlier. This is probably the most significant reason for my hatred of authoritarianism in general and socialism specifically.

    Now the request. Razib, can you give more information about the Ancient Rome poster at ASHG19?

    Thanks.

  2. re: rome. paper out in 1 month.

    the results looked like this to me

    1) no diff btwn etruscans and latins
    2) massive shift toward ‘eastern’ affinity during the imperial period
    3) shift ‘back’ after the late antique period

    basically, i think it is in line with work which suggests large fraction of non-natives in *cities* when cities declined this genetic imprint diminshed and medieval cities were repopulated from rural areas.

  3. Book question. I am trying to do at least a minimum purge of my book collection which has overrun available shelf space. I found the following which I have (sadly) not gotten around to reading:

    “Great Human Diasporas” Cavalli-Sforza 1995

    “Saxons, Vikings, and Celts” Sykes 2006

    “Before Dawn” Wade 2006

    “Grandfather’s Tale” Lessard 2012

    Are they all outdated? Should I keep any of them?

  4. ” … My readings in psychology and history makes it very difficult for me to understand how anyone could adhere to a Misesian form of Austrianism with its commitment to praxeology. In short, I really think praxeology is a rotten foundation for any system of thought. Certainly when someone espouses Austrian economics it makes me question if they’re a bit nuts.” [1]

    Have you ever elaborated more on this? Do you also hold these views still? I’m one of those Moldbuggian nuts reading your blog, haha. Found the quote when reading your older blogs.

    > [1] https://www.unz.com/gnxp/so-why-isn-t-the-austrian-school-of-economics-retarded-again/

  5. Twinkie – Remember a while back when I asked about a huge dog that lives in my block, you said Alaskan Malamute, and I said it had blue eyes, which you said was wrong and it would have to be a hybrid? Well, you were right – I obviously observed/remembered incorrectly. It has pale brown eyes. So an Alaskan Malamute it is.

    I won’t elaborate on what I think of someone who keeps a dog like that in a small high-rise apartment in a sub-tropical climate. During hot humid weather, when I see it being taken out for walks, it appears unwell and is obviously suffering.

  6. Rome: Latins and Etruscans were particularly close though. Rome had Etruscan kings, elite and even broadscale influences.
    Question is whether other Italics are the same or different.

    Post-Rome the death of urban life was indeed the death of many city dwellers, but I’m pretty sure that Germanic and general Northern Italian influences played in a big way beside the direct rural neighbours of the new cities.
    Also, the samples from Roman cities should be everything else but homogeneous, so sample bias could be real.

    Still I’m quite excited for whats coming.

  7. I am trying to do at least a minimum purge of my book collection which has overrun available shelf space. I found the following which I have (sadly) not gotten around to reading:

  8. Well, you were right

    Thank you for coming back and saying so.

    what I think of someone who keeps a dog like that in a small high-rise apartment in a sub-tropical climate.

    Nothing wrong with having a large dog in “a small high-rise apartment.” All houses, big or small, are prisons for dogs unless they get outside exercises. When my wife and I lived in a tiny apartment, we had two large dogs and they were very happy dogs, because they went running and walking with us several times a day and often went hiking with us (carrying their own water and food in packs) during the weekends. Sometimes they also went to and ran on the beach! They led good lives and died at 16 and 15, respectively – well-beyond the normal range of the breeds’ life spans.

    Dogs with dense, double-coated fur are not the best in warm climates, but dogs are in general pretty adaptable (as are people), so unless the owners are boneheads who dehydrate their dogs, expose them to too much sun without shades, and/or leave them in cars, the climate issue can be managed.

    The summers where I live are relatively warm and humid, and I do have some Northern breeds, and they do fine (but I am not a bonehead dog owner – I don’t overwork them during summers). They do love their winters though. They go crazy when it snows.

  9. @Twinkie – I hear you. But this dog gets to go out once per day, for a fairly short walk along a paved walkway, in direct sunlight, 35 degrees Celsius in the shade and 98% Relative Humidity. Plus the walkway is right next to a dedicated cycleway, and the poor animal is obviously terrified of bicycles, most of which are racing bikes that are going very fast on the cycleway, because they can, and there are a lot of them. It never manages more than a very slow walk, and seems to struggle with that. It’s absolutely huge, with a very thick coat – bigger and more thickset than a wolf; it’s the size of a bear. I don’t know if all of that breed grow quite that big.

  10. emma: We have a pretty big house and books have overrun it. It makes no difference how much space you have, your books will overrun it.

    Razib: still waiting for your reply.

    Also Razib. I just read “Who Are the Jews of India?” by Nathan Katz, Berkley, 2000.
    https://www.amazon.com/Who-Jews-India-Nathan-Katz/dp/0520213238/

    Fascinating. At least two Jewish groups that arrived a long time ago found a place for themselves as a separate endogamous community in the Indian caste system. The Cochin Jews of Kerala, and the Bene Israel of the Konkan coast. Living as one endogamous community amongst many, their Jewish Identity survived. They mostly emigrated to Israel after independence.

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