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Dear Sam Altman: All Coherent and Fruitful Thought Is Restricted

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Re: Dear Sam Altman: All Coherent and Fruitful Thought Is Restricted

#11

Post by tzs »

bthornbury wrote: post #4

A giant fallacious argument. Hard even to read. See examples below. > "That your post elicited outrage from a large body of people who study sociology, politics, and culture should provide you with some evidence that, perhaps, you are wrong." Argumentum ad populum. Appeal to Authority. Slightly softballed with the perhaps, but it doesn't make it better. If all we ever did was listen to the experts, the earth would be…

> If all we ever did was listen to the experts, the earth would be flat still

That's mostly a myth. In almost all cases, at least in objective fields, the people who establish a new understanding that replaces the old expert consensus are themselves experts in the old understanding.

The people who established a round earth in any given culture were experts in that culture's flat earth view.

Copernicus was an expert in geocentric cosmology.

Galileo was an expert in Aristotelian physics.

Einstein was an expert in Newtonian physics.

Re: Dear Sam Altman: All Coherent and Fruitful Thought Is Restricted

#12

Post by tsjackson »

Attention has quickly become our scarcest and most valuable resource, and filtering out noise is one of the most valuable services that can be provided. The no limits, "let the good in with the bad" approach is just not realistic at this point in human history.

Unfortunately, I don't think that sociologists are going to find the answer alone. It will take others who can engage the theory, but not become swept away in it. What's most troubling is that Sam Altman is just the sort of person who might be able to add value to the situation by taking a complex issue and thinking really hard about how to deal with it. We need to develop nuanced mechanisms of combatting misinformation and filtering out truly impoverished arguments while letting in unusual, perhaps even incorrect, but potentially valuable ones. Instead he merely repeated dogma of a "marketplace of ideas" model of the world that is clearly inconsistent with the evidence all around us.

This is, at least in part, a technical problem. Zuckerberg seems to be waking up to the role of the failed marketplace of ideas in creating the political monstrosity that we are dealing with now. He seems to be at least thinking through how to deal with it. But it's going to require a lot more than one organization to figure out how to communication must change in an era where the value of talk is so much lower and the value of the attentional resources required to truly listen are so much higher.

Re: Dear Sam Altman: All Coherent and Fruitful Thought Is Restricted

#13

Post by [deleted] »

tzs wrote: post #11
bthornbury wrote: post #4

A giant fallacious argument. Hard even to read. See examples below. > "That your post elicited outrage from a large body of people who study sociology, politics, and culture should provide you with some evidence that, perhaps, you are wrong." Argumentum ad populum. Appeal to Authority. Slightly softballed with the perhaps, but it doesn't make it better. If all we ever did was listen to the experts, the earth would be…

> If all we ever did was listen to the experts, the earth would be flat still That's mostly a myth. In almost all cases, at least in objective fields, the people who establish a new understanding that replaces the old expert consensus are themselves experts in the old understanding. The people who established a round earth in any given culture were experts in that culture's flat earth view. Copernicus was an expert i…

[deleted]

Re: Dear Sam Altman: All Coherent and Fruitful Thought Is Restricted

#14

Post by jstewartmobile »

bthornbury wrote: post #4

A giant fallacious argument. Hard even to read. See examples below. > "That your post elicited outrage from a large body of people who study sociology, politics, and culture should provide you with some evidence that, perhaps, you are wrong." Argumentum ad populum. Appeal to Authority. Slightly softballed with the perhaps, but it doesn't make it better. If all we ever did was listen to the experts, the earth would be…

ad populum or no, the original post "E Pur Si Muove" struck me as some kind of dog-whistle for eugenics-lite, along with a side of butthurt for being tsk-tsked about it, so I see where this dude is coming from--even if his argument could use a little work.

However, I am purely going off the tone of Sam's article. I know very little about Sam Altman. He could have been coming from a place of goodwill and sincerity. If he was, "E Pur Si Muove" also needs a little work, 'cause at face value... dog whistle.

Re: Dear Sam Altman: All Coherent and Fruitful Thought Is Restricted

#15

Post by whamlastxmas »

arkona wrote: post #5

Tl;dr? This is word salad and isn’t saying anything other than “Sam Altman shouldn’t speak about this because he isn’t a sociologist”. Where is the author’s rebuttal?

Tldr: a lot of people disagree so you're inarguably wrong

Re: Dear Sam Altman: All Coherent and Fruitful Thought Is Restricted

#16

Post by ebcode »

arkona wrote: post #10
CPLX wrote: post #9

I'm not sure why this post is getting such criticism. The entire argument made here basically reduces to the concept "if everyone around you is telling you you're an asshole, the most probable conclusion is that you're an asshole" but in a more diplomatic way. Which, having read the original post in question, seems a reasonable response.

... so basically argumentum ad populum. Galileo should’ve just shut up

Come now, it wasn't the "populum" that wanted Galileo to shut up, it was the "Pope-ulum".

Re: Dear Sam Altman: All Coherent and Fruitful Thought Is Restricted

#17

Post by bthornbury »

tzs wrote: post #11
bthornbury wrote: post #4

A giant fallacious argument. Hard even to read. See examples below. > "That your post elicited outrage from a large body of people who study sociology, politics, and culture should provide you with some evidence that, perhaps, you are wrong." Argumentum ad populum. Appeal to Authority. Slightly softballed with the perhaps, but it doesn't make it better. If all we ever did was listen to the experts, the earth would be…

> If all we ever did was listen to the experts, the earth would be flat still That's mostly a myth. In almost all cases, at least in objective fields, the people who establish a new understanding that replaces the old expert consensus are themselves experts in the old understanding. The people who established a round earth in any given culture were experts in that culture's flat earth view. Copernicus was an expert i…

Sources required, for all our benefit

Re: Dear Sam Altman: All Coherent and Fruitful Thought Is Restricted

#18

Post by bthornbury »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #14
bthornbury wrote: post #4

A giant fallacious argument. Hard even to read. See examples below. > "That your post elicited outrage from a large body of people who study sociology, politics, and culture should provide you with some evidence that, perhaps, you are wrong." Argumentum ad populum. Appeal to Authority. Slightly softballed with the perhaps, but it doesn't make it better. If all we ever did was listen to the experts, the earth would be…

ad populum or no, the original post " E Pur Si Muove " struck me as some kind of dog-whistle for eugenics-lite, along with a side of butthurt for being tsk-tsked about it, so I see where this dude is coming from--even if his argument could use a little work. However, I am purely going off the tone of Sam's article. I know very little about Sam Altman. He could have been coming from a place of goodwill and sincerity.…

> dog-whistle for eugenics-lite, along with a side of butthurt for being tsk-tsked

What does this even mean..

Re: Dear Sam Altman: All Coherent and Fruitful Thought Is Restricted

#19

Post by [deleted] »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #14
bthornbury wrote: post #4

A giant fallacious argument. Hard even to read. See examples below. > "That your post elicited outrage from a large body of people who study sociology, politics, and culture should provide you with some evidence that, perhaps, you are wrong." Argumentum ad populum. Appeal to Authority. Slightly softballed with the perhaps, but it doesn't make it better. If all we ever did was listen to the experts, the earth would be…

ad populum or no, the original post " E Pur Si Muove " struck me as some kind of dog-whistle for eugenics-lite, along with a side of butthurt for being tsk-tsked about it, so I see where this dude is coming from--even if his argument could use a little work. However, I am purely going off the tone of Sam's article. I know very little about Sam Altman. He could have been coming from a place of goodwill and sincerity.…

[deleted]

Re: Dear Sam Altman: All Coherent and Fruitful Thought Is Restricted

#20

Post by [deleted] »

bthornbury wrote: post #17
tzs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If all we ever did was listen to the experts, the earth would be flat still That's mostly a myth. In almost all cases, at least in objective fields, the people who establish a new understanding that replaces the old expert consensus are themselves experts in the old understanding. The people who established a round earth in any given culture were experts in that culture's flat earth view. Copernicus was an expert i…

Sources required, for all our benefit

[deleted]
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