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E Pur Si Muove

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: E Pur Si Muove

#341

Post by lutorm »

throwaway8766 wrote: post #64

I'm extremely aware of this as someone who is socially conservative in terms of abortion, gay marriage, trans issues, etc (seriously not trying to start a flame war). It's weird knowing that a large portion of the country has similar values to me, but in a major city I can never mention these things or I'll immediately become unemployable. It doesn't matter that these things have zero impact on my behavior at work; y…

I don't mind people being socially conservative, you can have whatever opinions you want about how you think people should live their lives or whatnot, and I'm perfectly willing to discuss them with you. I may not understand how you came to hold those views, but that likely goes both ways.

What I'm not OK with, however, is people not respecting other people's rights to have their own views. And that goes from calling them names to refusing to serve them in their business to refusing to offer them the health insurance they want.

Edit: Just to be clear, I agree that merely expressing views should not result in an online inquisition. That people whose views I generally agree with do makes me very uncomfortable, and I agree with Sam Altman that this makes it difficult to have serious discussions.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#342

Post by nine_k »

letsbehonest wrote: post #329
nine_k wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While in SF / SV, can you feel the general air of the ideas acceptable here? A small experiment: take an idea which obviously contradicts that air, and imagine rationally discussing it with people who you typically meet in SF. Will it be more than slightly uncomfortable? Scott Alexander wrote this great piece, I leave a link to it here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything... For instant enlig…

While on HN, you can feel the general air of acceptable ideas. Sam Altman is not concerned that a leftist can't have a sane discussion on this website. But he IS concerned that a bigoted racist can't be openly bigoted at work. Weird. I wonder why it is that Sam Altman is so concerned about the rights of bigots to be openly bigoted? Definitely couldn't be related to his relationship with Peter Thiel. No way...

I don't see left agenda oppressed on HN. E.g. posts about universal basic income, allegedly a rather left-wing policy, appear here often, are highly upvoted and, to my mind, discussed in a quite civil manner.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#343

Post by teekert »

todd8 wrote: post #113
teekert wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you see," said Roark quietly, "I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no…

Written in 1943! This really resonates with me. One reason I like working in software is that many of the limitations of other engineering disciplines (the strength of materials, the weight of concrete, etc) don’t limit our creations. Our limits are our own ability to manage complexity and the limits of what we can dream to do.

Me too! But more on a personal level. It was the first time I got a really good description of how thinking of yourself and taking your own interests seriously and putting them on top (of course respecting that other have that right as well) is not only ethical but can also make you and the people you love more happy. I really tended to be overly social, putting others needs over mine, and it made things very difficult in relationships. When you always do what she wants, somehow you start to resent it and then you realize it is you that should invest in finding out what you truly like. Otherwise, what is your love worth if it is not from the most selfish of reasons "I love you because I deeply want to be with you, I'm not doing it for you." To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’

Ok, one more that is nice from our software point of view then and matches your comment:

---

"Look, " said Roark. "The famous flutings on the the famous columns—what are they there for? To hide the joints in the wood—when columns were made of wood, only these aren't, they're marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?"

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#344

Post by staunch »

tsjackson wrote: post #286
jerf wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not refuting his point... you're demonstrating it.

The main thrust of the argument seems to be that we should do our best to stop censorship. I'm arguing that we probably shouldn't. Our society is not really equipped to handle the free exchange of ideas at this point.

Because some large percentage of people are filled with cynicism and pessimism?

Every objective measure of society is better today than at any time in the past, and yet we have people calling for curtailing a core American value due to a supposed social emergency. These demoralized people need a hard reality check because there's nothing fact-based about the way they think or behave.

There are orders of magnitude more educated people in the world today than ever before. Development of technology is rapidly accelerating. The idea that we can't solve our problems without sacrificing our souls is just pathetic and historically un-American.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#345

Post by UncleEntity »

librvf wrote: post #203
Avshalom wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're leaving out the part where A whips up a real mob and lynches somebody. And what do you think has a stronger chilling effect: the possibility of being fired or the possibility of being murdered?

> You're leaving out the part where A whips up a real mob and lynches somebody. Yeah because that hasn't happened, and if it did would be met with universal condemnation and be up against full weight of law enforcement and the legal system. > And what do you think has a stronger chilling effect: the possibility of being fired or the possibility of being murdered? If the possibility of being fired for ideas is highly…

> Yeah because that hasn't happened, and if it did would be met with universal condemnation and be up against full weight of law enforcement and the legal system.

True they haven't actually murdered anyone yet but The Twitter Mob (aka Antifa) has assaulted quite a few wrong-thinkers, or people they thought were wrong-thinkers, or people just walking to work minding their own business who may or may not have wrong-thunk in the past.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#346

Post by mooe »

The title of your essay is the very height of arrogance.

Your assertion is that it is very important to human progress that people who despise homosexuals (or others) be allowed to spread their hatred without any social or professional repercussions.

This is, at best, a questionable assertion, and it is one that you give no evidence for.

However, you are so insanely fucking arrogant that you're comparing yourself to Gallileo? As you fight for the right of powerful oppressors to demonize minorities?

Go fuck yourself, sam. Go fuck yourself.

I know that you're a fucking coward, so you won't respond. You'll probably just have dang delete the post (because you do not actually believe in open speech).... but man... fuck you, and fuck your shitty fucking parents for raising you to believe that it's somehow more important to protect bigotry and hatred than it is to protect actual goddamned people.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#347

Post by workthrowaway27 »

geofft wrote: post #230
AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just off the top of my head in the last year or so: Social scientist Charles Murray was censored then physically assaulted at Middlebury because he wrote a book about the correlation between intelligence and success [ https://youtu.be/a6EASuhefeI?t=19m25s ] Biology professor Bret Weinstein at Evergreen State College had himself and his family physically threatened because he refused to participate in a protest that a…

Please see my other reply in this thread about censoring people vs. censoring ideas. The only one on this list that's somewhat convincing is the Laurier one, since that was in the course of an academic class. Milo isn't an academic. A professor beating someone with a bike lock might be inappropriate and criminal but isn't about academic discourse unless the other person is a professor, and it seems this person was a…

They're being censored because of their ideas though... I'm not sure how you can draw that distinction.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#348

Post by cortesoft »

alien_at_work wrote: post #104
cjbprime wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This distinction seems very fragile. I notice you've switched the act from "working on" in the original quote to "presenting". I don't think your distinction works anymore if you remove that change you made. Why would it be wrong to regard someone dedicating most of their time to actively accomplishing ("working on") an unethical thing as an unethical person? What else could "unethical person" possibly mean?

The issue is that what we're discussing is not objectively unethical. If we were discussing disecting live babies, then no one would disagree that anyone for that is unethical and even evil. But extending human life? We don't know exactly what would happen if we did that. Some people think it would be the end of the world, others (like me) think it would actually bring about positive change. Given that it's controver…

Doesn't it depend on how strongly your belief about the ethics are? We all place ethical considerations on a scale - murder is worse than littering. The exact placement of an action on the moral spectrum, however, is subjective (e.g. some people place eating animals very high on the spectrum as being very immoral).

Everyone is going to have some threshold where they think 'an act that is this immoral means the person doing the action is also immoral', where actions that are below that threshold are treated as 'this action is unethical, but the person doing it could still be good'

Most people think someone who murders is a bad person (the act is immoral, and the person doing it is immoral). However, as the we move down the line, EVERYONE has to 'make the call' as to where the action becomes something that doesn't immediately make the person doing the action immoral. It isn't wrong that we have to make that call, it is the only way.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#349

Post by bambax »

Disappointing salad of ideas.

Apparently I should be allowed to say that gay people are evil, but not that radical life extension is a really really bad and yes, in my opinion, truly evil and selfish idea.

Should I be allowed to profess that humanity would be happier and less taxing on the planet if there were less of us? And should I be able to research methods to sterilize most people, and seek funding to experiment, without ever discussing the moral and practical consequences? What about radical life reduction (for others, of course)?

The consequences of radical life extension should be discussed prior to implementation; I can't see what's so frustrating about that.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#350

Post by mundo »

bambax wrote: post #349

Disappointing salad of ideas. Apparently I should be allowed to say that gay people are evil, but not that radical life extension is a really really bad and yes, in my opinion, truly evil and selfish idea. Should I be allowed to profess that humanity would be happier and less taxing on the planet if there were less of us? And should I be able to research methods to sterilize most people, and seek funding to experimen…

The essay was not so much against "life extension is bad" as against "people who think life extension is good are bad."
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