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Why are there so many rationalist cults?

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Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#551

Post by godelski »

wombatpm wrote: post #522
godelski wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have this oversimplified. Stringing together inferences can take us in either direction. It really depends on how things are being done and this isn't always so obvious or simple. But just to show both directions I'll give two simple examples (real world holds many more complexities) It is all about what is being modeled and how the inferences string together. If these are being multiplied, then yes, this…

Can’t you improve thing if you can calibrate with a known good vampire? You’d think NIST or the CDC would have one locked in a basement somewhere.

IDK, probably? I'm just trying to say that iterative inference doesn't strictly mean decreasing likelihood.

I'm not a virologist or whoever designs these kinds of medical tests. I don't even know the right word to describe the profession lol. But the question is orthogonal to what's being discussed here. I'm only guessing "probably" because usually having a good example helps in experimental design. But then again, why wouldn't the original test that we're using have done that already? Wouldn't that be how you get that 95% accurate test?

I can't tell you the biology stuff, I can just answer math and ML stuff and even then only so much.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#552

Post by jandrese »

dylan604 wrote: post #427
to11mtm wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this analogy. I think of a bike's shifting systems; better shifters, better housings, better derailleur, or better chainrings/cogs can each 'improve' things. I suppose where that becomes relevant to here, is that you can have very fancy parts on various ends but if there's a piece in the middle that's wrong you're still gonna get shit results.

You only as strong as the weakest link. Your SCSI devices are only as fast as the slowest device in the chain. I don't need to be faster than the bear, I only have to be faster than you.

> Your SCSI devices are only as fast as the slowest device in the chain.

There are not many forums where you would see this analogy.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#553

Post by skybrian »

wredcoll wrote: post #527
meowface wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's considered the father of rationalism and the father of AI doomerism. He wrote this famous article in Time magazine a few years ago: https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-no... His book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies comes out in a month: https://www.amazon.com/Anyone-Builds-Everyone-Dies-Superhuma... You can find more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky

> He's considered the father of rationalism [citation needed] Even for this weird cult that is trying to appropriate the word, would they really consider him the father of redefining the word?

Less metaphorically, he was a prolific, influential blogger. His early blog posts are collectively known as "the Sequences" and when people asked what rationalism is about, they were told to read those.

So the community itself gives him a lot of credit.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#554

Post by jandrese »

godelski wrote: post #355
ar-nelson wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Yudowsky-style rationalists morbidly fascinating in the same way as Scientologists and other cults. Probably because they seem to genuinely believe they're living in a sci-fi story. I read a lot of their stuff, probably too much, even though I find it mostly ridiculous. The biggest nonsense axiom I see in the AI-cult rationalist world is recursive self-improvement. It's the classic reason superintelligence tak…

> The biggest nonsense axiom I see in the AI-cult rationalist world is recursive self-improvement. This is also the weirdest thing and I don't think they even know the assumption they are making. It makes the assumption that there is infinite knowledge to be had. It also ignores the reality that in reality we have exceptionally strong indications that accuracy (truth, knowledge, whatever you want to call it) has expo…

I think of it more like visualizing a fractal on a computer. The more detail you try to dig down into the more detail you find, and pretty quickly you run out of precision in your model and the whole thing falls apart. Every layer further down you go the resource requirements increase by an exponential amount. That's why we have so many LLMs that seem beautiful at first glance but go to crap when the details really matter.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#555

Post by UltraSane »

JohnMakin wrote: post #85

One of a few issues I have with groups like these, is that they often confidently and aggressively spew a set of beliefs that on their face logically follow from one another, until you realize they are built on a set of axioms that are either entirely untested or outright nonsense. This is common everywhere, but I feel especially pronounced in communities like this. It also involves quite a bit of navel gazing that m…

A good example of this is the number of huge assumptions needed for the argument for Roko's basilisk. I'm shocked that some people actually take it seriously.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#557

Post by righthand »

righthand wrote: post #74
potato3732842 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it speaks volumes that you think "american" is the approximate level of scope that this behavior lives at. Stuff like this crosses all aspects of society. Certain americans of certain backgrounds, demographics and life experiences are fare more likely engage in it than others. I think those people are minority, but they are definitely an overly visible one if not a local majority in a lot of internet spaces s…

Sure many people across the globe are susceptible to cult-think. It’s just been a century long trend in America to seek a superior way of living to “save all Americans” is all. No offense to other countries peoples, I’m sure they’re just as good cult members championing over application as any American. It probably speaks more volumes that you are taking my comment about this so literally.

Are Apple, Disney, NFL, etc. fandoms with religious dedication a cult? America you can choose your cult identities and even belong to many.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#558

Post by username332211 »

wredcoll wrote: post #528
username332211 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why people can't be bothered to get formal training is that modern philosophy doesn't seem that useful. It was a while ago, but take the infamous story of the 2006 rape case in Duke University. If you check out coverage of that case, you get the impression every member of faculty that joined in the hysteria was from some humanities department, including philosophy. And quite a few of them refused to change…

> Meanwhile, whatever meager resistence was faced by that group seems to have come from economists, natural scientist or legal scholars. > I wouldn't blame people for refusing to study in a humanities department where they can't tell right from wrong. Man, if you have to make stuff up to try to convince people... you might not be on the right side here.

I'm not sure what you are talking about. I have to admit, I mostly wrote my comment based on my recollections and it's a case 20 years ago I barely paid attention to until after the bizzaire conclusion. But looking trough Wikipedia's articles on the case[1] it doesn't seem I'm that far from the truth.

I guess I should have limited my statement about resisting mob justice to the economists at that university as the other departments merely didn't sign on to the public letter of denunciation?

Its weird that Wikipedia doesn't give you a percentage of signatories of the letter of 88 from the philosophy department, but several of the notable signatories are philosophers.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_Duke_lacros...

Edit: Just found some articles claiming that a chemistry professor by the name of Stephen Baldwin was the first to write to the university newspaper condemning the mob.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#559

Post by jefftk »

wredcoll wrote: post #527
meowface wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's considered the father of rationalism and the father of AI doomerism. He wrote this famous article in Time magazine a few years ago: https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-no... His book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies comes out in a month: https://www.amazon.com/Anyone-Builds-Everyone-Dies-Superhuma... You can find more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky

> He's considered the father of rationalism [citation needed] Even for this weird cult that is trying to appropriate the word, would they really consider him the father of redefining the word?

I think that claim would be pretty uncontroversial among people who consider themselves rationalists. He was extremely influential initially, and his writing kicked off the community.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#560

Post by joeblubaugh »

1attice wrote: post #400
vehemenz wrote: post #344

I get the impression that these people desperately want to study philosophy but for some reason can't be bothered to get formal training because it would be too humbling for them. I call it "small fishbowl syndrome," but maybe there's a better term for it.

My thoughts exactly! I'm a survivor of ten years in the academic philosophy trenches and it just sounds to me like what would happen if you left a planeload of undergraduates on a _Survivor_ island with an infinite supply of pizza pockets and adderall

Funny that this also describes these cult rationalist groups very well.
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