Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

No, what I'm arguing is that if we only spent money on things everyone agrees are useful, we'd never get anything done.

I'm not very familiar with the subject matter, but do you realize that this concluding argument is very weak?

Firstly, I don't think I've seen mentioned an instance where Yudkowsky seems to be trying to prevent a collective black identity from forming a political block.

Secondly, you've suggested that the mechanism by which Yudkowsky's material end up as bullets for people who desire to perpetuate prejudice is where the prejudiced party misrepresents Yudkowsky (thereafter, Y). Therefore, your reasoning goes, Y and the LW commenters are guilty for engaging in subject matter that are ripe for appropriation.

Unless I'm mistaken, your accusation is one that is pretty unjust in itself. You are accusing Y with a moral crime for Y&LW's association with (racially) prejudiced groups that have misrepresented Y as prejudiced. This is despite that Y has neither affirmed this association nor mentioned anything prejudiced, his crime being entertaining "weird hypotheticals". Rather, if such a thing has occurred, isn't Y a victim of the prejudiced groups himself?

> I cannot judge to which degree these theses are bullshit.

Go the link, go to references, read about them. I'll outline the gist: Most of what Yudkowsky says is extremely sci-fi, no real basis in scientific fact, but stretching the current technological progress to the point where his opinions on things (stuff like transhumanism, singularity) can be justified.

What he's preaching isn't science. Certainly not rigorous experimental science. He (along with Bostrom) tends to engage in extreme hypotheticals. Which, sure if you're a philosopher, is fine. But even then, wouldn't you want your work to be judged by like-minded peers? But alas, here has a convenient excuse of being "auto didactic" to fall back on, so he can sit on his armchair and critique traditional education, and his lack of peer reviewed material.

Not to mention, and this is a bit of a pet peeve, I find that most LW people are too self-absorbed, I've literally seen a blog where the person who runs it "warns" the readers that what he writes is too complicated for people to follow. This sort of narcissistic, self congratulatory thinking is what puts me off more than anything. Writing long form posts on the Internet which use complicated words don't make you smart.

http://laurencetennant.com/bonds/cultofbayes.html is another critique. It comes off as bit crass, but stick with it.

> I've found LW a tremendously rich source of thinking tools and I'm convinced that reading or skimming a lot of the sequences have improved my thinking.

There are other ways to improve your thinking. Read books. Read different kind of books, that offer counter point of views. Farnham Street Blog is a good place to start for a list of resources for thinking tools/mental models btw. :)

> this criticism is very unfair, very hurtful, and mostly bullshit. You don't have to believe me - but you now have a second data point for your consideration.

No I do not. All you've provided me is a point of view without anything resembling rational reasoning. I believe that trains can fly. You don't have to believe me, but now you have another data point for your consideration.

> this kind of criticism is impossible to defend against.

See my initial statement. All you have to do is point flaws in the above link.

> To prove that it's mostly bullshit would take me literally writing a book - in which I would surely make mistakes,

If you're not confident in your ability to assess and refute an argument, then why bother making it?

> that then could be used to discredit it entirely in a single article.

Nobody is saying the article above is perfectly written, or that the critique is 100% on point, but that does not mean the broad point he makes has no merit. Same would be true for the hypothetical book you write.

> When people read a powerful criticism "debunking" things about a group they vaguely know, the default for most is to agree with the criticism. For some reason it's natural to humans.

Do you have any basis on which you're making that claim? No, because if you did, you'd provide that.

> All I want now is to make people stop for at least a moment, consider that the article may be unfair, and to not make judgments before double-checking the claims.

But WHY? WHY? You've, objectively, given me ZERO reason besides "it's malicious and people are biased when reading debunking articles". You've clearly refused to engage in the content. You haven't even quoted a single line and proved that it's false. Whereas the article in question is an in-depth exploration of the community of people, their beliefs, the personalities involved, what they believe, their education background and many more things. What have you done? Nada.

I can go on and tear down your whole reply, but I'll stop here.I come off with the impression that you're taking this personally and therefore, as a natural response, you're defending it, which is fine. I'm not trying to be a dick, but perhaps you should work on your argumentation and logic skills before trying to defend or take any side.

There was a thread on LW about potential information hazards[0] - in particular, a kind created by the special flavor of decision theory which was being developed there. This was one of the "peculiar out there" kind of stuff LW people like to play with. Here comes Roko, who says that he created a potential hazardous piece of information - a thing that if you know it, you're fucked - that could lead to people suffering, and then posts it right there. Eliezer deleted the comment, claiming Roko is being irresponsible (and wrong, but still irresponsible if he believed that what he posted was a hazard), and the topic of what became known as Roko's basilisk was banned from discussion for some time.

Eliezer's argument was that Roko behaved unethically by posting something he claimed to believe will hurt people who will read it. That's irrelevant to whether the post itself was an information hazard or not. Eliezer actually later claimed it wasn't, that Roko was wrong. But the whole situation ended up being used to prove the point that LW people are loonies who invent and believe crazy things.

Hence my analogy, in which one person is rightfully angry at another, but ends up being painted as having issues instead.

[0] - https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Information_hazard