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Guess I'm a rationalist now

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#221

Post by baq »

bilbo0s wrote: post #191
nradov wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When railroads were first being built across the continental USA, those companies also had high valuations (for the time). Most of them ultimately went bankrupt or were purchased for a fraction of their peak valuation. But the tracks remained, and many of those routes are still in use today.

Just checked. The problem is the railroads were purchased by the winners. Who turned out to be the existing winners. Who then went on to continue to win. On the one hand, I guess that's just life here in reality. On the other, man, reality sucks sometimes.

That’s capitalism for you - loser’s margins were winner’s opportunities.

Imagine if they were bought by losers.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#222

Post by matthewdgreen »

resters wrote: post #159
contrarian1234 wrote: post #9

The article made me think deeper about what rubs me the wrong way about the whole movement I think there is some inherent tension btwn being "rational" about things and trying to reason about things from first principle.. And the general absolutist tone of the community. The people involved all seem very... Full of themselves ? They don't really ever show a sense of "hey, I've got a thought, maybe I haven't considere…

Not meaning to be too direct, but you are misinterpreting a lot about rationalists. In my view, rationalists are often "Bayesian" in that they are constantly looking for updates to their model. Consider that the default approach for most humans is to believe a variety of things and to feel indignant if someone holds differing views (the adage never discuss religion or politics ). If one adopts the perspective that th…

My impression is that many rationalists enjoy believing that they update their beliefs, but in practice they're human and just as attached to preconceived notions as anyone else. But if you go around telling everyone that updating is your super-power, you're going to be a lot less humble about your own failures to do so.

If you want to see how human and tribal rationalists are, go criticize the movement as an outsider. Or try to write a mildly critical NYT piece about them and watch how they react.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#223

Post by thom »

NoGravitas wrote: post #130
contrarian1234 wrote: post #9

The article made me think deeper about what rubs me the wrong way about the whole movement I think there is some inherent tension btwn being "rational" about things and trying to reason about things from first principle.. And the general absolutist tone of the community. The people involved all seem very... Full of themselves ? They don't really ever show a sense of "hey, I've got a thought, maybe I haven't considere…

I've always seen the breathless Singularitarian worrying about AI Alignment as a smokescreen to distract people from thinking clearly about the more pedestrian hazards of AI that isn't self-improving or superhuman, from algorithmic bias, to policy-washing, to energy costs and acceleration of wealth concentration. It also leads to so-called longtermism - discounting the benefits of solving current real problems and fo…

The Singularitarians were breathlessly worrying 20+ years ago, when AI was absolute dogshit - Eliezer once stated that Doug Lenat was incautious in launching Eurisko because it could've gone through a hard takeoff. I don't think it's just an act to launder their evil plans, none of which at the time worked.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#224

Post by matthewdgreen »

camgunz wrote: post #76
contrarian1234 wrote: post #9

The article made me think deeper about what rubs me the wrong way about the whole movement I think there is some inherent tension btwn being "rational" about things and trying to reason about things from first principle.. And the general absolutist tone of the community. The people involved all seem very... Full of themselves ? They don't really ever show a sense of "hey, I've got a thought, maybe I haven't considere…

Yeah I don't know or really care about Rationalism or whatever. But I took Aaronson's advice and read Zvi Mowshowitz' Childhood and Education #9: School is Hell [0], and while I share many of the criticisms (and cards on the table I also had pretty bad school experiences), I would have a hard time jumping onto this bus. One point is that when Mowshowitz is dispelling the argument that abuse rates are much higher for…

Cherry-picking friendly studies is one of the go-to moves of the rationalist community.

You can convince a lot of people that you've done your homework when the medium is "an extremely blog post with a bunch of studies attached" even if the studies themselves aren't representative of reality.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#225

Post by NoGravitas »

elt895 wrote: post #119
greener_grass wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is an arbitrage going on where STEM types who lack background in philosophy, literature, history are super impressed by basic ideas from those subjects being presented to them by stealth. Not saying this is you, but these topics have been discussed for thousands of years, so it should at least be surprising that Yudkowsky is breaking new ground.

Are there other philosophy- or history-grounded sources that are comparable? If so, I’d love some recommendations. Yudkowsky and others have their problems, but their texts have an interesting points, are relatively easy to read and understand, and you can clearly see which real issues they’re addressing. From my experience, alternatives tend to fall into two categories: 1. Genuine classical philosophy, which is usua…

I don't know if there's anything like a comprehensive high-level guide to philosophy that's any good, though of course there are college textbooks. If you want real/academic philosophy that's just more readable, I might suggest Eugene Thacker's "The Horror of Philosophy" series (starting with "In The Dust Of This Planet"), especially if you are a horror fan already.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#226

Post by nradov »

aredox wrote: post #195
contrarian1234 wrote: post #9

The article made me think deeper about what rubs me the wrong way about the whole movement I think there is some inherent tension btwn being "rational" about things and trying to reason about things from first principle.. And the general absolutist tone of the community. The people involved all seem very... Full of themselves ? They don't really ever show a sense of "hey, I've got a thought, maybe I haven't considere…

They are the perfectly rational people who await the arrival of a robot god... Note they are a mostly American phenomenon. To me, that's a consequence of the oppressive culture of "cliques" in American schools. I would even suppose it is a second-order effect of the deep racism of American culture: the first level is to belong to the "whites" or the "blacks", but when it is not enough, you have to create your own sub…

There is certainly some racism in parts of American culture. We have a lot of work to do to fix that. But on a relative basis it's also one of the least racist cultures in the world.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#227

Post by thom »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #222
resters wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not meaning to be too direct, but you are misinterpreting a lot about rationalists. In my view, rationalists are often "Bayesian" in that they are constantly looking for updates to their model. Consider that the default approach for most humans is to believe a variety of things and to feel indignant if someone holds differing views (the adage never discuss religion or politics ). If one adopts the perspective that th…

My impression is that many rationalists enjoy believing that they update their beliefs, but in practice they're human and just as attached to preconceived notions as anyone else. But if you go around telling everyone that updating is your super-power, you're going to be a lot less humble about your own failures to do so. If you want to see how human and tribal rationalists are, go criticize the movement as an outside…

Yes, I've never met anyone who stated they have "strong opinions, weakly held" who wasn't A) some kind of arsehole and B) lying.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#228

Post by norir »

One of my many problems with rationalism is that it generally fails to acknowledge it's fundamentally religious character while pronouncing itself superior to all other religions.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#229

Post by throw7 »

I used to snicker at these guys, but I realized I'm not being humble or to be more theologically minded: gracious.

Recognizing we all take a step of faith to move outside of solipsism into a relationship with others should humble us.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#230

Post by adastra22 »

ummonk wrote: post #129
contrarian1234 wrote: post #9

The article made me think deeper about what rubs me the wrong way about the whole movement I think there is some inherent tension btwn being "rational" about things and trying to reason about things from first principle.. And the general absolutist tone of the community. The people involved all seem very... Full of themselves ? They don't really ever show a sense of "hey, I've got a thought, maybe I haven't considere…

Rationalists have always rubbed me the wrong way too but your argument against AI doomerism is weird. If you care about first principles, how about the precautionary principle? "Maybe it's actually benign" is not a good argument for moving ahead with potentially world ending technology.

The precautionary principle does active harm to society because of opportunity costs. All the benefits we have reaped since the enlightenment have come from proactionary endeavorers, not precautionary hesitation.
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