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Guess I'm a rationalist now

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Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#641

Post by lechatonnoir »

jerf wrote: post #347
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point. Speaking only for myself, I think I fail to understand why it's important to situate philosophical discussions in the context of all the previous philosophers who have expressed related ideas, rather than simply discussing the ideas in isolation. I remember as a child coming to the same "if reality is a deception, at least I must exist to be deceived" conclusion that Descartes did, well before I…

It may be easier to imagine someone trying to derive mathematics all by themselves, since it's less abstract. It's not that they won't come up with anything, it's that everything that even a genius can come up with in their lifetime will be something that the whole of humanity has long since come up with, chewed over, simplified, had a rebellion against, had a counter-rebellion against the rebellion, and ultimately p…

Well, sure, but mathematics is the domain for which this holds maybe the most true out of any. It's less true for fields which are not as old.

I'm not sure if this counterpoint generalizes entirely to the original critique, since certainly LessWrongers aren't usually posting about or discussing math as if they've discovered it-- usually substantially more niche topics.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#642

Post by PaulHoule »

gsf_emergency_2 wrote: post #638
PaulHoule wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EA always rubbed me the wrong way. (1) The kind of Gatesian solutions they like to fund like mosquito nets are part of the problem, not part of the solution as I see it. If things are going to get better in Africa, it will be because Africans grow their economy and pay taxes and their governments can provide the services that they want. Expecting NGOs to do everything for them is the same kind of neoliberal thinking…

(3) "Controversial" is a weasel word AFAIC :) The difficulty is in deriving any useful utility function from prices (even via preferences :), and as you know, econs can't rid themselves of that particular intrusive thought https://mitsloan.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/So... E: know any econs taking Habermas seriously ? Not a rhetorical q: http://ecoport.org/storedReference/558800.pdf

What makes it really bad is that you can't add different people's utility functions, or for that matter, multiply the utility function of some imagined galactic citizen by some astronomical amount. The question of "what distribution of wealth maximizes welfare" [1] is unanswerable in that framework and we're left with the Randian maxim that any transaction freely entered into is "fair" because nobody would enter into it if it didn't increase their utility function.

[1] Though you might come to the conclusion that greeder people should have the money because they like it more

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#643

Post by absurdo »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #546

As someone who likes both the Rationalist community and the Rust community, it's fascinating to see the parallels in how the Hacker News crowd treats both. The contempt, the general lack of curiosity and the violence of the bold sweeping statements people will make here are mind-boggling.

What kind of commentary here have you heard here around the Rust community? I haven’t heard much. Certainly nothing close to violent. I’ve heard lots of shit talking regarding Go because they refused to introduce generics - and to be fair, the reasoning behind the refusal was smug arrogance led by the pompous cock rpike.

I will say as someone who has been programming before we had standardized C++ that “programming communities” aren’t my cup of tea. I like the passion and enthusiasm but it would be good for some of those lads to have a drag, see a shrink and get some nookie.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#644

Post by bell-cot »

PaulHoule wrote: post #623
troyastorino wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overlap between the Effective Altruism community and the Rationalist community is extremely high. They’re largely the same people. Effective Altruism gained a lot of early attention on LessWrong, and the pessimistic focus on AI existential risk largely stems from an EA desire to avoid “temporal-discounting” bias. The reasoning is something like: if you accept that future people count just as much as current peopl…

EA always rubbed me the wrong way. (1) The kind of Gatesian solutions they like to fund like mosquito nets are part of the problem, not part of the solution as I see it. If things are going to get better in Africa, it will be because Africans grow their economy and pay taxes and their governments can provide the services that they want. Expecting NGOs to do everything for them is the same kind of neoliberal thinking…

> When it comes to the nuclear waste issue, for instance ...

Nuclear waste issues are 99.9% present-day political/ideological. Huge portions of the Earth are uninhabitable due to climate and/or geology. Lead, mercury, arsenic, and other naturally-occurring poisons contaminate large areas. Volcanoes spew CO2 and toxic gasses by the megaton.

Vs. when is the last time you heard someone get excited over toxic waste left behind by the Roman Empire?

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#645

Post by Filligree »

notahacker wrote: post #415
ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they bought mansions for team building They bought one mansion to host fundraisers with the super-rich, which I believe is an important correction. You might disagree with that reasoning as well, but it's definitely not as described.

Wytham Abbey was bought mainly to host internal workshops and "retreats", as outlined by the people who bought it https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xof7iFB3uh8Kc53bG/... https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yggjKEeehsnmMYnZd/... As far as I know it's never hosted an impress-the-oligarch fundraiser, which as you say would at least have a logic behind it[1] even if it might seem distasteful. For a philosop…

> If you drew a Venn diagram of the people that objected, people who sneered at the objections[2] and people who identified as rationalists you might only need two circles though...)

I’m a bit confused by this one.

Are you saying that no-one who identifies as rationalist sneered at the objections? Because I don’t think that’s true.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#646

Post by lechatonnoir »

Aurornis wrote: post #515
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I do think that these hedging statements make them immune from the specific criticism that I quoted. If you want to say their humility is not genuine, fine. I'm not sure I agree with it, but you are entitled to that view. But to simultaneously be attacking the same community for not ever showing a sense of maybe being wrong or uncertain, and also for expressing it so often it's become an in-group signal , is jus…

> es, I do think that these hedging statements make them immune from the specific criticism that I quoted. That's my point: Their rhetorical style is interpreted by the in-group as a sort of weird infallibility. Like they've covered both sides and therefore the work is technically correct in all cases. Once they go through the hedging dance, they can put forth the opinion-based point they're trying to make in a very…

> They don't really ever show a sense of "hey, I've got a thought, maybe I haven't considered all angles to it, maybe I'm wrong - but here it is". The type of people that would be embarrassed to not have an opinion on a topic or say "I don't know"

edit: my apologies, that was someone else in the thread. I do feel like between the two comments though there is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't". (The original quote above I found absurd upon reading it.)

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#647

Post by Zaylan »

Reading this made me realize that rationality isn’t really about joining a group. It’s more about whether you care about how you think. No matter how solid the logic is, if the starting assumptions are off, it doesn’t help much. Reality is often messier than any model we build. How do you decide when to trust the model vs trust your instincts?

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#648

Post by gsf_emergency_2 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #642
gsf_emergency_2 wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(3) "Controversial" is a weasel word AFAIC :) The difficulty is in deriving any useful utility function from prices (even via preferences :), and as you know, econs can't rid themselves of that particular intrusive thought https://mitsloan.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/So... E: know any econs taking Habermas seriously ? Not a rhetorical q: http://ecoport.org/storedReference/558800.pdf

What makes it really bad is that you can't add different people's utility functions, or for that matter, multiply the utility function of some imagined galactic citizen by some astronomical amount. The question of "what distribution of wealth maximizes welfare" [1] is unanswerable in that framework and we're left with the Randian maxim that any transaction freely entered into is "fair" because nobody would enter into…

Comic sophism ain't gonna make hypernormies reconsider lol

(Aside from the semi-tragic one to consider additive dilogarithms..)

One actionable (utility agnostic) suggestion: study the measureable consequences of (quantifiable) policy on carbon pricing, because this is already quite close to the uncontroversial bits

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#649

Post by lechatonnoir »

Aurornis wrote: post #562
gjm11 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockstep like this? https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-proba... (a post on Less Wrong, karma score currently +442, versus +102 and +230 for the two posts it cites as earlier favourable LW coverage of the lithium claim -- the comments on both of which, by the way, don't look to me any more positive than "skeptical but interested") The followup post from the same author https://www.lesswrong.com/pos…

> Lockstep like this? https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-proba ... (a post on Less Wrong, karma score currently +442, versus +102 and +230 for the two posts it cites as earlier favourable LW coverage of the lithium claim -- the comments on both of which, by the way, don't look to me any more positive than "skeptical but interested") That post came out a year later, in response to the absurdity of…

Aside from the remark given in the other reply to your comment, I wonder what the standard is: how quickly should a community appear to correct its incorrect beliefs for them to not count as sheep?

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#650

Post by FeepingCreature »

Aurornis wrote: post #566
mananaysiempre wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That book, IMO, reads very much like a smear attempt, and not one done with a good understanding of the target. The premise, with an attempt to tie capital-R Rationalists to the neoreactionaries though a sort of guilt by association, is frankly weird: Scott Alexander is well-known among the former to be essentially the only prominent figure that takes the latter seriously—seriously enough, that is, to write a large a…

I always find it interesting that when the topic of rationalists' fixation on neoreactionary topics comes into question, the primary defenses are that it's important to look at controversial ideas and that we shouldn't dismiss novel ideas because we don't like the group sharing them. Yet as soon as the topic turns to criticisms of the rationalist community, we're supposed to ignore those ideas and instead fixate on t…

There are certain parts of the history of the rationalist movement that its enemies are orders of magnitude more "fixated" on than rationalists ever were, Neoreaction and the Basilisk being the biggest.

Part of evaluating unusual ideas is that you have to get really good at ignoring bad ones. So when somebody writes a book called "Neoreaction: a Basilisk" and claims that it's about rationality, I make a very simple expected-value calculation.

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