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My falling-out with the rationalist community

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Re: My falling-out with the rationalist community

#141

Post by HDThoreaun »

cogman10 wrote: post #44
zahlman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> gatherings where they all proclaim that their beliefs are true even if they don't seriously believe them? What on Earth are you referring to? What gatherings? What beliefs? What proclamations? What evidence of insincerity?

> What gatherings? Rationalist have groups meetup and conferences. For example [1] > What beliefs? It's pretty diverse and not uniformly held. Some of the more strange ones that seem to have pretty wide appeal are around AI safety. For example, Roko's basilisk. > What proclamations? What evidence of insincerity? I was responding to the comment above me that suggested that 95% don't actually hold rationalist beliefs a…

95% of rationalists always thought roko's basilisk was a joke

Re: My falling-out with the rationalist community

#142

Post by HDThoreaun »

g-b-r wrote: post #133
eudamoniac wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a rationalist and I don't know who these people are. As far as I can tell they're a bunch of online weirdos who don't matter. But as for that statement, "humanity will be far far better off if they're subjected to the values of effective altruists," that depends on the values in question, which haven't been explained in this thread. But there is definitely a set of values that exists that humanity would be be…

What you wrote means that you're potentially in favor of a dictatorship, by the way? Can I ask you if it's an idea you developed yourself or you read about it somewhere?

Im in favor of benevolent dictatorship. The big problem is ensuring the benevolence

Re: My falling-out with the rationalist community

#143

Post by zahlman »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #41
sxp wrote: post #35

> For one, their analyses almost always amounted to post hoc justifications of the things they liked. "Almost always" is carrying a lot of weight here. Rationalists are ideologically diverse [1] when it comes to things like monogamy vs polyamory, left vs right, pro-AI vs anti-AI, nature vs nurture, racism vs anti-racism. The distribution is different from the general population, but many people have changed their min…

That graph looks incredibly un-diverse. Assuming it's accurate, it's mostly childless white male Americans, who skew heavily towards being students.

>> Rationalists are ideologically diverse [1]

> That graph looks incredibly un-diverse.

Which of age, childlessness, white skin, being male or US citizenship is an "ideology"?

Re: My falling-out with the rationalist community

#144

Post by zahlman »

lux-lux-lux wrote: post #50
pavel_lishin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That graph looks incredibly un-diverse. Assuming it's accurate, it's mostly childless white male Americans, who skew heavily towards being students.

Well-educated young middle class white men, and with politics that generally flow entirely predictably from those demographics. The only real outlier is the openness to HBD/scientific racism stuff.

> with politics that generally flow entirely predictably from those demographics.

There is obviously no such thing.

The clear purpose of the subthread the two of you are engaging in is clearly against HN guidelines.

Re: My falling-out with the rationalist community

#145

Post by zahlman »

g-b-r wrote: post #134
vovavili wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's something about their approach that appears to actually make people more susceptible to nonsense, not less. It would be highly surprising if an open-access online community with the kind of slogans that might be particularly appealing to somewhat spectrumy individuals did not occasionally attract some eccentrics. The point I am trying to make here is that these are pretty fringe offshots and are far from the…

What would you say are the views of the community as a whole, those shared by most of its members?

I gave an example elsewhere in the post and I was accused of dishonesty and strawmanning — even though it's obviously something that everyone in that community is expected to believe, because it's true (in the same way that 2 + 2 = 4 is true) and because it's specifically highlighted as a fundamental truth in the Sequences.

There was also someone else ITT pointing out that the community are not at all uniform, and that got a pithy response about it being largely "childless white male Americans" as if that is supposed to matter (and disregarding that fully 5% of survey respondents consider themselves not cis, and 19% not straight, which are both way above baseline).

So pardon me if I don't consider this sort of question to be in good faith.

Re: My falling-out with the rationalist community

#146

Post by stackghost »

zahlman wrote: post #136
stackghost wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go back and reread yourself in this thread. 1. Someone says they don't like rationalism 2. You say there's no such thing 3. Someone else suggests your defense of rationalism is materially similar to how scientologists defend their cult 4. You say "nuh-uh because Bayes' theorem is true"??? That's such a weird non-sequitur. Nothing before had anything to do with Bayes. That is just a straw man you constructed to argue…

> Go back and reread yourself in this thread. I know perfectly well what I said in this thread and don't need to re-read it. It wasn't long. > You say "nuh-uh because Bayes' theorem is true"??? No, that isn't at all what I said. First off, it makes no sense for the other party to characterize my "defense of rationalism" in any manner, because I was not offering such a thing. When I say that something doesn't exist, t…

>I know perfectly well what I said in this thread and don't need to re-read it. It wasn't long.

Then you should realize your replies have been obnoxious, and that's why you're getting the responses you're getting. Have a fantastic day.

Re: My falling-out with the rationalist community

#147

Post by eudamoniac »

g-b-r wrote: post #133
eudamoniac wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a rationalist and I don't know who these people are. As far as I can tell they're a bunch of online weirdos who don't matter. But as for that statement, "humanity will be far far better off if they're subjected to the values of effective altruists," that depends on the values in question, which haven't been explained in this thread. But there is definitely a set of values that exists that humanity would be be…

What you wrote means that you're potentially in favor of a dictatorship, by the way? Can I ask you if it's an idea you developed yourself or you read about it somewhere?

I have trouble understanding the problem with a benevolent dictatorship, yes. Obviously in real life there are all kinds of problems that arise due to human nature. In an abstract sense, a benevolent philosopher king is better than democracy.

I don't think I read about this, it just seems obvious that if a truly great intelligent leader leads a country it's better than the stupid masses voting about things.

Re: My falling-out with the rationalist community

#148

Post by vovavili »

g-b-r wrote: post #135
vovavili wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author here clearly is extremely superficially familiar with the writings of rationalist people and views them from a preconceived standpoint. Comparing beliefs of Yudkowsky to dianetics is nothing short of misguided, whether you like him or not. This is a textbook study of motivated reasoning.

Aren't rationalists supposed to be objective and motivate their claims, rather than belittling any critic with unsubstantiated statements? > This is a textbook study of motivated reasoning What would be his motive, why would he have preconceptions about you? Could it be that it's your messages here that are motivated, and with scarce reasoning?

>What would be his motive

A libertarian socialist podcaster tries to discuss an online culture that is adjacent to Silicon Valley tech scene. He then proceeds to take movement’s worst manifestations as its essence. One would have to be naive to miss the source of his bias.

Re: My falling-out with the rationalist community

#149

Post by g-b-r »

vovavili wrote: post #148
g-b-r wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't rationalists supposed to be objective and motivate their claims, rather than belittling any critic with unsubstantiated statements? > This is a textbook study of motivated reasoning What would be his motive, why would he have preconceptions about you? Could it be that it's your messages here that are motivated, and with scarce reasoning?

>What would be his motive A libertarian socialist podcaster tries to discuss an online culture that is adjacent to Silicon Valley tech scene. He then proceeds to take movement’s worst manifestations as its essence. One would have to be naive to miss the source of his bias.

My feeling is that he understands your "online culture" much better than you, is very balanced and careful in the video, and you're probably a lot younger, inexperienced with internet groups and impressionable than him.

Take his advice to talk with (and listen to!) people outside your cadre, and to consider the possibility that you're entirely in the wrong. And maybe to touch grass.

Cheers

Re: My falling-out with the rationalist community

#150

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

Planktonne wrote: post #9

[flagged]

No I think that's unfair to the author. This is how they close the article:

>> I bit my tongue, thought to myself “wow, what a stupid game to play”, and deleted the draft.

That's very much a sign of a realisation that the problem was their "initial flawed belief", as I read it.

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