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It went above your head.
It went above their head because it was poor writing in their view? Why would you think taste in writing has anything to do with their ability to understand the points the writer was trying to make? This seems unecessary and you are probably capable of coming up with a more interesting response.
Do we believe that we alone, of all people who have believed in the coming end, have it right this time?
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It went above your head.
It went above their head because it was poor writing in their view? Why would you think taste in writing has anything to do with their ability to understand the points the writer was trying to make? This seems unecessary and you are probably capable of coming up with a more interesting response.
If it "goes above the head" of the people it's targeted at, that just makes it a poorly written puff piece.
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> Does this mean that Rationalists are the only people uniquely free of status concerns and therefore able to discuss important issues in intelligent ways? To a limited extent, yes. Lol. “Only people who agree with me are capable of rational thought and discussion.” The philosophy of and for internet trolls.
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It went above their head because it was poor writing in their view? Why would you think taste in writing has anything to do with their ability to understand the points the writer was trying to make? This seems unecessary and you are probably capable of coming up with a more interesting response.
It was supposed to be a flawed protagonist.
If you'd like to read more about the roots of Effective Altruism, ranging from old mailing lists, LessWrong, bitcoin, cults, AI and the surprising connections to many well known figures in tech, I highly recommend the 7-part Extropia's Childen series from Jon Evans [1] 1. https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...
Golly. I'm on part 2 and it sounds like they're about to invent Scientology. > The full post goes into more depth and nuance, but it's worth stressing how heavily Leverage relied on “debugging,” based on Anders's “Connection Theory.” Debugging consisted of — to paraphrase and oversimplify — opening up one's psyche, history, self, and emotional core to maximum vulnerability, generally to one's hierarchical superior, a…
Any hoo - this stuff is the tip of the iceberg.
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YMMV. I tried to finish it based on a strong trusted recommendation, but could not get past the insufferable author-inserts, and the unpleasant and unbelievable hero character.
I too didn't finish it - assuming it's "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality". I got caught up by the multiple times the main character made sweeping assessments of things with insufficient information, and just happened to be right by accident (or author fiat I guess). The main characters figure things out by Thinking Really Hard, and experimentation is only ever done to prove they were right all along to oth…
When is Harry Potter and the Reproducibility Crisis coming out?
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Most charitable foundation on the left and the right may focus on one problem but make nods to it's connections to others. I know a lot of lesswrong people acknowledge climate change is real and Covid is a problem but raise the point that "this is so important we have to ignore other potential problems" but by doing this they alien those who might care about their important problem.
It's funny 'cause Eliezer and other have realized that the way corporations go about things means they won't care about safety here, just as they don't about safety anywhere else (say East Palestine). Yet these people have burned all bridges with those who are generally concerned about corporate behavior.
(I'm personally not as concerned only because I'd see AGI as further than they imagine but if GPT-X could unsafe, then Eliezer's correct you might as well dig a hole somewhere).
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It was supposed to be a flawed protagonist.
It's commonly thought (and obvious) that Yud wrote the book about himself so I doubt it. It doesn't really fit the rationalist playbook either, they take themselves excessively seriously.
I have always felt that the embrace of "AI can be dangerous" comes from an elitist fear of capitalist class that the "unwashed masses" will have too much access to technology and will make capital, as well as labor, obsolete. I mean if everybody has a super-smart personal assistant in their home, who thinks independently, why would they need or want a ruling class, when we can simply have democratic socialism?