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Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

futureofhumanityinstitute.org

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Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#181

Post by jimbokun »

n4r9 wrote: post #170
undershirt wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I got a strong feeling that Lewis' arguments and exposition were guided by something other than logic, though they pretended to be following it. The trilemma is an example of this. One way to discover that we necessarily have worldviews outside of logic is to look at a statement like this, and realize it appeals to something outside of logic (feelings) to critique how someone else is only pretending to follow it.

I am not saying that I or anyone am perfectly logical or uninfluenced by feeling. Hume was exactly correct when he said the reason is the slave of the passions. But - with his trilemma, Lewis claims "here is a logical argument for believing in the Christian god", and then presents a weak and illogical argument. It's difficult to know what to make of this except that Lewis was somehow blinded to the logical flaws.

> "here is a logical argument for believing in the Christian god"

That is definitely not the point of the trilemma. It simply argues that Christ must be placed into one of three categories, which do not include "generally nice and completely harmless moral teacher". He was clearly claiming to be God, which obviously leads to the trilemma of choices between Liar, Lunatic and Lord.

That doesn't say which one of those three to pick. Just ruling out the other possibilities by considering the claims he made about himself.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#182

Post by colechristensen »

neilv wrote: post #94
colechristensen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in context of current problems/challenges People have been saying nonsense like this for as long as we have recorded history of people saying anything.

If you're not feeling the increasing dissatisfaction and worsening conditions that a lot of research reports, that's great for you, but I wouldn't call it nonsense.

My point is a large group of people have been feeling "dissatisfaction and worsening conditions" for thousands of years. It's what growing up and getting older feels like. You yearn for how things were in the past.

It's easy to take for granted the things which got better before you knew about them and to overemphasize things which are getting worse now. There is always something, there always has been something, always will be. And always there have been people insisting that the modern problems are the real serious ones compared to the past.

Doom sells. Lots of people buy it.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#183

Post by kragen »

pfdietz wrote: post #125
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does one research and generate insights for what does not exist yet? It's Zeno's paradox of research: we cannot think about what does not already exist, therefore nothing new can ever be brought into existence!

I call this "nothing can ever happen for the first time". One often hears it in passive-aggressive arguments against renewable energy.

it seems plausible that all new things are brought into existence unintentionally. that is, you tried to create something you imagined, but what you actually created was something else. certainly there are many examples of thinking about renewable energy that were completely wrong because they were based on presumptions that no longer hold, or in some cases were already wrong but in a nonobvious way

as my wife points out, we can't even imagine any of the things that do actually exist, only drastic simplifications thereof

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#184

Post by pfdietz »

robertlagrant wrote: post #177
pfdietz wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call this "nothing can ever happen for the first time". One often hears it in passive-aggressive arguments against renewable energy.

Never heard that in that context. Can you cite an example?

I constantly see the argument "no country has ever been powered by solar and wind", implying that it therefore can't be done, and that one should use nuclear instead (never mind the same is true of nuclear; not even France is fully nuclear powered).

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#185

Post by kragen »

Vecr wrote: post #175
karma_pharmer wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, he published a nonfiction book, the best part of which is the first chapter which consists of literally a fiction story . He also has some serious problems with blinders, but they're the same blinders HN has so if I explain any further this post will get flagged, flogged, deleted, and downvoted. Ah well.

Tell me what they are. I won't do any of those things.

karma_pharmer cannot do that because others will

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#186

Post by arduanika »

johnthewise wrote: post #169
arduanika wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to assume that SBF only turned to a life of crime because the EA movement lured him into it. It's not an assumption. It's a matter of record, understood by anyone who knows the basics of the FTX saga. SBF is a lifelong utilitarian, and his co-conspirators were also committed EAs. Anyone who obscures that fact is abetting the campaign of obfuscation. > Many of the people involved seem to have good intentions Yup. Th…

This type of argument can be used against pretty much any group that has ever existed, then either it's too broad and not a meaningful critique of the group itself or a critique of humans getting together in general.

Sorry, you've lost me here. Which part of my argument are referring to?

I'm not criticizing a group, btw. I'm criticizing ideas. Ideas have specific consequences. Some ideas inspire good actions. Some inspire bad actions that outweigh the good.

When an idea claims to have big consequences in the distant future, we can look at its consequences in the present day to help us guess the likely nature of those future consequences.

Oxford deals in ideas, and gets to decide which ones to host and fund. Sometimes they get it wrong, mistaking bad ideas for good ones. That's unfortunate, but it's nice when they come around to the right assessment eventually.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#187

Post by JohnFen »

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #81
esafak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. sbf was about that, but EA is not. Are there other cases of EA fraud?

Well, that's the point in question. For its critics, the whole enterprise is a misguided sham. See Leif Wenar's stimulating recent piece, 'The Deaths of Effective Altruism', which sees SBF less as aberration, than symptom. https://www.wired.com/story/deaths-of-effective-altruism/ I think EA was naive from the start, both in its unreflective moral realism, and its reduction of complicated questions of social theory do…

> For its critics, the whole enterprise is a misguided sham.

I'm a critic, but I don't think it's a sham. I do think it's very misguided and I very strongly suspect it has evolved into a cult, but it's not a sham.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#188

Post by n4r9 »

jimbokun wrote: post #181
n4r9 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying that I or anyone am perfectly logical or uninfluenced by feeling. Hume was exactly correct when he said the reason is the slave of the passions. But - with his trilemma, Lewis claims "here is a logical argument for believing in the Christian god", and then presents a weak and illogical argument. It's difficult to know what to make of this except that Lewis was somehow blinded to the logical flaws.

> "here is a logical argument for believing in the Christian god" That is definitely not the point of the trilemma. It simply argues that Christ must be placed into one of three categories, which do not include "generally nice and completely harmless moral teacher". He was clearly claiming to be God, which obviously leads to the trilemma of choices between Liar, Lunatic and Lord. That doesn't say which one of those t…

> He was clearly claiming to be God

I don't know if that's true. Certainly there are biblical scholars who would disagree. It's not mentioned in the first three gospels, for example.

> obviously leads to the trilemma of choices

Again, not obvious. The three choices are logically incomplete. There are other possibilities, such as that Jesus was not a ful-on lunatic: he had a single delusional belief about his own divinity but was otherwise rational.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#189

Post by n4r9 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #173
n4r9 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying that I or anyone am perfectly logical or uninfluenced by feeling. Hume was exactly correct when he said the reason is the slave of the passions. But - with his trilemma, Lewis claims "here is a logical argument for believing in the Christian god", and then presents a weak and illogical argument. It's difficult to know what to make of this except that Lewis was somehow blinded to the logical flaws.

What do you think are the logical flaws in the trilemma argument?

It's highly debatable whether Jesus believed himself to be divine. There are more than three options, for example Jesus may have simply made a mistake in his own reasoning. It is not as inconceivable as Lewis makes out that Jesus was a lunatic or a liar.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#190

Post by cauch »

exo-pla-net wrote: post #117
cauch wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the author himself says that his sentence is repugnant. Are you saying that the author has no rational to say that? It really looks like nowadays we cannot say "that looks racist" without being accused of being the big satan that want to cancel everyone. If this kind of "ad-hominem" is not itself not without any rational and not noisy and inflammatory, I don't know what is. You can, if you want, defend that accor…

> Are you saying that the author has no rational to say that? Sure, instrumental rationale: PR. And, because I believe that Bostrom says what he means, Bostrom probably does think what he said was repugnant, but probably not in a way that you would find satisfying. Bostrom probably thinks that speaking truthfully about vulnerable people, in a manner that could distress them (e.g. owing to their misunderstanding of th…

You are pretending that you are welcoming any opinion, especially opinions that differ from your own. Yet, you were very quick to invent unfunded hypotheses to cast opinions different from yours as "not smart and therefore discardable".

Your "PR" hypothesis or "cater to delicate and low-IQ sensibilities" falls flat as the author has demonstrated before and after that he does not want to play in this PR game. It's exactly the point he is making in the first statements and the point he is making in his excuse: "I do think that provocative communication styles have a place". He also explains that he apologized 24h after having sent that message, when he had no idea that he will need one day some kind of PR considerations, and at a time when he was not even pressured to make any kind of apologies.

So, no, I call bullshit: he is giving the proof, himself, by explaining that, 24h after having said that, he properly realised his words went further than his thoughts. Without any need for PR, without even any pressure pushing him to do so. (and again, if it is a lie, it's a stupid one, as someone can check, and a totally useless one, because it does not need to invent that if he just want to do some PR clean-up)

The funny part is that I think the quote is indeed racist but the guy is not, he is just one of these edgelords who want to provoke to feel themselves smart (based on what he himself says when he explains that he is biased towards provocative ideas). But now you are yourself painting him as a smart guy for defending something that himself explained is in fact not smart and not his opinion at all. It feels like some silence would have improved the forum and also avoided some people to look pretty stupid ...

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