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E Pur Si Muove

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: E Pur Si Muove

#81

Post by api »

alien_at_work wrote: post #40
api wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the meta level this is a symptom of the fact that the polarization of our culture is extremely deep. We are polarized on epistemology , metaphysics , and what it means to be human , with the left favoring various forms of scientific or empirical epistemology and a mutable model of human nature and the right favoring revelatory or traditionalist epistemology and an immutable model of human nature. The latter is tru…

>with the left favoring various forms of scientific or empirical epistemology What is scientific or empirical about safe spaces and identity politics?

Those things are part of the reaction I describe. The right is also creating its own enclaves.

I would not be surprised to see the United States physically fragment and balkanize in the next 10-20 years. I get the sense that some on the hard-right and possibly also the hard-left have that as a goal.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#82

Post by dominotw »

ak_yo wrote: post #43
workthrowaway27 wrote: post #21

I wonder how much of this is an outgrowth of the current university campus climate where opinions that don't fit into the predominant liberal worldview can't be voiced. I don't mean this as a criticism of liberals or liberalism specifically here, since I realize many conservatives would do the same about issues they care about if they had the power and numbers to.

In what world are these opinions not voiced? I don't think this argument stands up to empirical scrutiny -- there's an incredibly robust network of vocally conservative student organizations.

Listen to this debate

https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/free-speech-th...

plenty of examples by the side arguing for the motion.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#83

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

Cyberdog wrote: post #58
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be a funny assertion to say that you're less free to speak in SV where the worst you'll get is a tongue-lashing vs China where the worst you'll get is quite a lot worse. How would you even fix this freedom? Somehow constrain people to not speak their mind when they disagree with you? Constraining them through government would obviously make us less free so that's out. Constraining them through culture is no…

"The worst you'll get is a tongue-lashing?" Not even close. It is quite ordinary for SV employees to be fired or "resign" after being caught participating in wrongthink. Eich is the most famous example, but Apple's former chief of diversity is a more recent one. No, this is not quite as severe as being arrested and imprisoned for thinking the wrong things. But career-wise, at least, it can be almost as disastrous.

Okay but how do you solve that? You take away the right of companies to fire people for speech? I see no way to increase freedom from the status quo here.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#84

Post by creaghpatr »

pavlov wrote: post #17
ch4s3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That struck me as ridiculous. If you piss off the mayor of SF you don't get disappeared, but that very much does happen in China.

In China, you can even get disappeared in your own home. It’s called “residential surveillance at a designated location” — indefinite house arrest under police watch. It’s used routinely against both irrelevant dissidents and high-profile targets like artist Ai Weiwei and Nobel prize winner Liu Xiaobo. Maybe, in Altman’s Panglossian view, house arrest is just an opportunity to think deeply about inconvenient truths.

I'm giving Sam the benefit of the doubt that he's just trying to make a point and didn't think that line through.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#85

Post by cjbprime »

youdontknowtho wrote: post #35
jstanley wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he's asking for ideas to be criticised, and for the people presenting the ideas not to be ostracised. You can say "it's a bad idea to work on extending life", but following on from there to cast the person presenting the idea as unethical is doing more harm than good.

I keep hearing that from people saying things like... "I think black people are genetically inferior." ...followed by... "Why can't we have a free exchange of ideas?" What if the ideas are unethical? There is a lot of that going around these days. Life extension is one that comes up quite a bit, because the question doesn't seem to involve life extension for all, but life extension for a few who can afford it. Or, if…

I agree with you.

The best argument for life extension here would probably be to say that technologies like cell phones, which we now consider to be liberating technologies that almost everyone can afford -- even people living in poverty -- also started out as affordable only by the ultra-wealthy, and there's simply no way to arrive at a new tech without going through that stage.

If the tech were only useful to the ultra-wealthy once developed, that would be a flaw demanding criticism. But criticizing a technology for having a first stage of not being affordable before it becomes more affordable later seems to miss the mark.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#86

Post by alien_at_work »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #7

Isn't this just asking for your ideas to not be criticized? Me: let's extend life Someone else: If people live a lot longer it will be disastrous for the environment, so people working on this must be really unethical Isn't this exactly how it's supposed to work? Why would Sam complain about an encounter like this?

>Isn't this just asking for your ideas to not be criticized?

No, he's asking not to be critisized for his ideas. And it's troubling to me that you think what you presented is a proper discourse but I guess that's where we are today. The "someone else" in your example is simple minded and potentially dangerous in large enough numbers. It is not at all a given that people living longer would be disasterous for the environment [1] and therefor, no, people working on this may not be unethical.

Your "someone else", whom you seem to think responds in a completely reasonable manner, makes a highly oppinionated statement and then judges people based on that oppinion. How far is it from "they must be unethical" to "we should boycott their means of feeding their family" or even "we should probably put them in jail before they do something bad".

[1] In fact I find the idea beyond ludicrious. If people live longer, they're likely to put off having children until much much later (people in the west already wait about as long as they physically can). Further, if people like the Koch brothers knew they would have to stay on this planet for 10k years maybe they wouldn't be so willing to destroy the next 50-100 years for a nice 5-10 now.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#87

Post by hellcow »

ealexhudson wrote: post #6

I think this is a radical simplification of what is a complex problem. Genetic engineering as a whole is known to be an area strewn with moral hazards, and not least harks back to some of the darkest days of 20th century science. Having an ethical outlook isn't a form of heresy, it's a form of societal safety. We need to accept that some of these ideas (probably not all - it's always difficult to get on the right sid…

> We need to accept that some of these ideas ... are inherently dangerous.

This line of reasoning leads to censorship. It's the same line of reasoning used by every dictator and demagogue as well as China today. Why? The idea of democracy seems dangerous to a king.

Ideas are not dangerous. Ideas are never dangerous. Ideas acted upon might cause danger or harm, but an idea itself never does, never has, and never will cause harm directly.

Open debate of ideas, or the testing of opposing ideas to find the best among them, is necessary for progress... not only to find and establish new ideas, but to question widely held ideas today in the hopes of finding something better. To have open debate--to find the best ideas--you need to listen to ideas with which you might not agree, or which you might find--if acted upon--dangerous.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#88

Post by librvf »

youdontknowtho wrote: post #35
jstanley wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he's asking for ideas to be criticised, and for the people presenting the ideas not to be ostracised. You can say "it's a bad idea to work on extending life", but following on from there to cast the person presenting the idea as unethical is doing more harm than good.

I keep hearing that from people saying things like... "I think black people are genetically inferior." ...followed by... "Why can't we have a free exchange of ideas?" What if the ideas are unethical? There is a lot of that going around these days. Life extension is one that comes up quite a bit, because the question doesn't seem to involve life extension for all, but life extension for a few who can afford it. Or, if…

> I keep hearing that from people saying things like...

Are you actually hearing that, or are you reading someone else's disingenuous over-simplified interpretation of what someone else said? Maybe just doing the incorrect reading yourself? Or are you reading an anonymous 4chan one-liner that could have been posted there by anyone for any reason?

> What if the ideas are unethical?

Then explain why. If you can't explain why something is unethical without resorting to intimidation of the people expressing those ideas, then maybe they are more ethical and your concept of righteousness is flawed or missing something important.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#89

Post by stestagg »

ak_yo wrote: post #43
workthrowaway27 wrote: post #21

I wonder how much of this is an outgrowth of the current university campus climate where opinions that don't fit into the predominant liberal worldview can't be voiced. I don't mean this as a criticism of liberals or liberalism specifically here, since I realize many conservatives would do the same about issues they care about if they had the power and numbers to.

In what world are these opinions not voiced? I don't think this argument stands up to empirical scrutiny -- there's an incredibly robust network of vocally conservative student organizations.

I'm rather assuming OP was referring to the sort of culture that produces this sort of discourse:

http://quillette.com/2017/12/11/problematic-poor-taste/

If the US Academic reaction to such a straight forward request was so hostile, then I can imagine many people feeling unable to voice actually difficult opinions

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#90

Post by geofft »

dominotw wrote: post #69
geofft wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder how much of this is an outgrowth of the current university campus climate where opinions that don't fit into the predominant liberal worldview can't be voiced. This does not seem to match the reality at university campuses - only the caricature by people who find it politically expedient to be seen as persecuted.

Results of this debate disagree with you https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/free-speech-th...

... pardon my assumption, but those four people don't look like college students. Are they?
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