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The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

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Re: The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

#111

Post by [deleted] »

KirinDave wrote: post #104
Kye wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need to redefine it. This usage is common among people who work on and with these subjects. KirinDave was using it in the sense used by sociologists and people who depend on their work. These kinds of conversations would be less touchy if people defined their terms in advance so everyone is on the same page. It's okay though. It's all cleared up now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence#Types

I am sorry these characters are downvoting you rather than actually engaging with your arguments. Please know that someone else sees it happening and thinks it's... uh... par for the course given the post histories of at least one person here.

[deleted]

Re: The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

#112

Post by cgriswald »

Kye wrote: post #84
matz1 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you redefine the word violence. To me violence has to involve physical force.

I don't need to redefine it. This usage is common among people who work on and with these subjects. KirinDave was using it in the sense used by sociologists and people who depend on their work. These kinds of conversations would be less touchy if people defined their terms in advance so everyone is on the same page. It's okay though. It's all cleared up now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence#Types

I don’t think it’s simply a matter of defining terms. The choice to call non-violent actions “violence” is a political one. It is certainly not made less so because certain people use it regularly when discussing these issues. Nor is your choice to use it any less political. You can’t wash your hands of it by pointing to others’ use.

What you are referring to here has been, in the past, considered a call to violence (or perhaps an implied call to violence). People, rightly or wrongly, object to the conflation of speech and violence.

I happen to think the normalization of speech as violence is dangerous doublespeak. What is gained by classifying speech as violence rather than simply vilifying the type of speech without the violence label? What is lost?

Re: The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

#113

Post by notduncansmith »

ColanR wrote: post #29
davesque wrote: post #11

A bit off-topic, but I've kind of struggled mentally since finishing The Dark Forest . Even though it's science fiction, it actually seems hard to argue with the theory in the book -- that civilizations must act to eliminate each other or they are overwhelmingly likely to be eliminated themselves. I'd like to believe it's not true, but so long as any two civilizations are likely to have dramatically different rates o…

Sadly, game theory bears out that observation. [1] Trust is difficult to cultivate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

True, but I think there’s more hope when you take superrationality[1] into account.

Multiple actors can independently arrive at compatible cooperative solutions to the survival-and-utility game (which is not zero-sum).

Wikipedia says it assumes all other players are also superrational, but I think in practice a successful variant of this strategy is to identify whether other players are superrational and avoid them if not.

There is sometimes the option of converting existing self-interested rational players into superrational ones, but that is another subject entirely.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality

Re: The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

#114

Post by Kye »

cgriswald wrote: post #112
Kye wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need to redefine it. This usage is common among people who work on and with these subjects. KirinDave was using it in the sense used by sociologists and people who depend on their work. These kinds of conversations would be less touchy if people defined their terms in advance so everyone is on the same page. It's okay though. It's all cleared up now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence#Types

I don’t think it’s simply a matter of defining terms. The choice to call non-violent actions “violence” is a political one. It is certainly not made less so because certain people use it regularly when discussing these issues. Nor is your choice to use it any less political. You can’t wash your hands of it by pointing to others’ use. What you are referring to here has been, in the past, considered a call to violence…

>> "What is gained by classifying speech as violence rather than simply vilifying the type of speech without the violence label? What is lost? "

Gained: the ability to identify how words and actions can eventually lead to physical (or other kinds of) violence rather than be surprised when it happens. Maybe it could even lead to intervention!

Lost: awe and mystery at how physical violence happens? I'm at a loss. Having language and concepts to understand stuff is pretty handy.

>> "What you are referring to here has been, in the past, considered a call to violence (or perhaps an implied call to violence)."

Call to violence is more direct. "Go murder that asshole!" The many faces of non-physical violence are rarely so direct.

Economic violence, for example, can set the conditions for physical violence. If prejudice as manifested through poverty (economic violence) makes it impossible for someone to live a good life, they may go out and rob someone or join a gang. They're more vulnerable to radicalization in general.

In my experience, people who get hung up on the "violence" part don't really care what you call it. They reject the idea of words mattering wholesale. Using gay as an insult, calling black people thugs, and the many worse kinds of awful never go anywhere, so it doesn't matter to them. To them, there's no point in caring in the first place.

You don't even get to discussing what to call harmful words and systems with them because they don't see that words can lead to harm and they reject the notion of human systems. We might as well call it violence and be done with it. You weren't going to find a palatable alternative.

It's a philosophical difference between "...and words can never hurt me" and "...words precede the sticks and stones." The former is fun to say before a bully kicks your ass. The latter is more reasonable once you've seen what words can do.

Or more simply: If words don't matter, who cares if I call non-physical violence violence? They're just words...

Re: The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

#115

Post by KirinDave »

cgriswald wrote: post #112
Kye wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need to redefine it. This usage is common among people who work on and with these subjects. KirinDave was using it in the sense used by sociologists and people who depend on their work. These kinds of conversations would be less touchy if people defined their terms in advance so everyone is on the same page. It's okay though. It's all cleared up now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence#Types

I don’t think it’s simply a matter of defining terms. The choice to call non-violent actions “violence” is a political one. It is certainly not made less so because certain people use it regularly when discussing these issues. Nor is your choice to use it any less political. You can’t wash your hands of it by pointing to others’ use. What you are referring to here has been, in the past, considered a call to violence…

The value judgement that violence is itself vilified is a radical one. Extremist, even. Are you sure that's your position?

Ultimately, if I enable violence by sharing information then surely I have some blame in the equation. For example, if I listed off your address and your posts and offered a bounty of one million dollars for your ears?Under your stated view it'd be "dangerous doublespeak" to suggest this act is dangerous or violent.

Re: The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

#116

Post by anigbrowl »

ethbro wrote: post #32
beat wrote: post #4

As much as I love Cixin Liu's "Dark Forest" concept (I've sung my praises of his novels quite a bit here), I'm not sure this post fully fleshes out the analogy. I think it could be developed further, though. What makes Cixin's dark forest so awful is that new intelligent species are going out into a Universe with other species millions of years more advanced than they are, species that can easily exterminate entire s…

grinds teeth A vein almost explodes in my forehead everytime someone points to Cixin Liu as the originator of DFT. The idea's been around since the early to mid-80s, and people could at least do diligence to properly cite. It's almost as insulting as if I said "When George Lucas started science fiction films with Star Wars..."

This is n-gate worthy

Re: The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

#117

Post by KirinDave »

derp_dee_derp wrote: post #106
KirinDave wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 4 senses of the word and only 1 names physical violence. Thank you for helping my argument, but we can all check the dictionary on our own time.

Cool story. Call me when you come back to reality.

Have a nice time doing whatever it is you do besides critically examining reality.

Re: The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

#118

Post by hannasanarion »

davesque wrote: post #11

A bit off-topic, but I've kind of struggled mentally since finishing The Dark Forest . Even though it's science fiction, it actually seems hard to argue with the theory in the book -- that civilizations must act to eliminate each other or they are overwhelmingly likely to be eliminated themselves. I'd like to believe it's not true, but so long as any two civilizations are likely to have dramatically different rates o…

There are several reasons not to fear Dark Forest, chief among them,

1. Any species that develops a civilization capable of space travel must necessarily have evolved a strong cooperative spirit, and so is more unlikely to exercise homicide as a first resort.

2. If Dark Forest were true, and there was a murderous civilization that wanted to kill every other, we would all be dead already. You can make an entire galaxy's worth of relativistic kill missiles with the mass of a medium size asteroid.

Sterilizing an entire galaxy to make sure that there is never a challenge to your rule can be accomplished in a few thousand years. Without needing any interstellar transit.

Re: The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

#119

Post by nradov »

KirinDave wrote: post #99
matz1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you or someone else actually do the robbery physically then I wouldn't call it violent. There is a reason that dictionary define it the way it is, its because enough people use it that way.

Okay, but we just had another person cite the dictionary and only one of the four senses agrees with you. Searching for "economic violence" brings up literally millions of hits. > There is a reason that dictionary define it the way it is, its because enough people use it that way. I just want to press down firmly on this since I doubt you've thought it through. If you held to this standard of words having meaning, th…

Economic "violence" isn't real violence. You're just making things up and trying to derail the conversation.

Re: The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

#120

Post by keyle »

soulofmischief wrote: post #50
ystrickler wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cut some of this out before hitting publish, but I had originally included more about the emotional and status anxiety of posting publicly, reputation management, and the risks to self posed by the way these platforms work. I ultimately cut those things because I thought they distracted from the overall idea and it's something we already hear so much of. I definitely wouldn't say this analogy is 1:1 with Liu Cixin'…

I was interested in reading your article, but Medium has it behind a paywall.

I too get annoyed with that. Outline.com is your friend.
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