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String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

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Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#671

Post by guerrilla »

t_mann wrote: post #144

Rationalism? The term has been used a lot of times since Pythagoras [0], but the combination of Bay Area, Oxford, existential risks, AI safety makes it sound like this particular movement could have formed in the same mold as Effective Altruism and Long-Termism (ie, the "it's objectively better for humanity if you give us money to buy a castle in France than whatever you'd do with it" crowd that SBF sprung from). Can…

Thet're virtually identical. Seven chapter history: https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#672

Post by guenthert »

rachofsunshine wrote: post #149

[Former member of that world, roommates with one of Ziz's friends for a while, so I feel reasonably qualified to speak on this.] The problem with rationalists/EA as a group has never been the rationality, but the people practicing it and the cultural norms they endorse as a community. As relevant here: 1) While following logical threads to their conclusions is a useful exercise, each logical step often involves some…

> (the guy makes Neil deGrasse Tyson look like a monk)

So years after an investigation into the allegation of sexual misconduct ended empty handed, it's still ok to throw mud?

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#673

Post by subsistence234 »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #342
snickerbockers wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering if it's relevant that so many of them are young people with "data science" degrees and they call themselves "rationalists". Sounds like they have some sort of superiority complex that might make them more susceptible to justifying acts of violence when it's "rational".

Perhaps. Rationalists are also known for updating[changing] their beliefs. They do this under the guise of "doing" Bayesian reasoning. It may be that susceptibility to cults is an edge case of this meta-congnitive position. Or in other words, stubbornness of beliefs may be a defense mechanism against cults.

let's stigmatize admitting when you were wrong. never changing your mind is the only way to avoid joining a murder cult!

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#674

Post by implements »

shadowgovt wrote: post #599
lostdog wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, what a perfect description of why their probability-logic leads to silly beliefs. I've been wondering how to argue within their frame for a while, and here's what I've come up with: Is the likelihood that aliens exist, are unfriendly, and AGI will help us beat them higher or lower than the likelihood that the AGI itself that we develop is unfriendly to us and wants to FOOM us? Show your work.

Much of philosophy throughout history seems to operate this way. I think philosophy is a noble pursuit, but it's worth noting how often people drew very broad conclusions, and then acted on them, from not very much data. Consider the dozens of theories of the constitution of the world from the time of the Greek thinkers (even the atomic theory doesn't look very much at all like atoms as we now understand them), or th…

> Much of philosophy throughout history seems to operate this way.

“Philosophy is poor at revealing truths but excellent at revealing falsehoods (or at least unsupported arguments)” was the main lesson I took from informally studying it.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#675

Post by guerrilla »

niemandhier wrote: post #627

Is there a grand figure of rationalist philosophy? Someone like a rationalist “Satre” or “Heidegger”? I think a lot of the weirdness of rational communities comes from them not properly integrating the existing canon of western philosophy and rediscovering pitfalls. Without the benefit of centuries of discussions it’s easy to come to strange conclusions.

Yes, https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/extropias-children-chapte...

I agree with your diagnosis as well. It's Dunning-Krueger. They keep re-inventing the wheel poorly due to their ignorance which is maintained because of their confidence which stems from their ignorance.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#676

Post by tsimionescu »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #31
s1artibartfast wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All first principles are unprovable. Theism does not have a monopoly on violence, so I don't see why I should be more concerned about it then anything else.

Because you can't reason with someone who doesn't employ reason. That doesn't mean they won't kill you - it just shuts down one avenue by which you might talk them out of it.

You can't reason about first principles. What first principles someone chooses as their "axioms" doesn't alter their ability to be reasonable. Materialism or empiricism are just as much a random choice for a base principle as deism or theism or many others.

A lot of the evils that the hardcore atheist crowd (Dawkins, Sam Harris, that crowd) ascribes to religion is oftentimes much better understood as imperialism and other purely political ambitions couched in what was the most common first principle of the time. The desire of European kings (including the Pope) to hold Jerusalem and later Constantinople were much better understood as a desire to control trade and expand their territory/influence rather than some deeply seated religious fervor, just for the example of the crusades. And for things like the inquisition, we can see today as well plenty of largely secular demonization and oppression of marginalized groups.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#677

Post by vermilingua »

guenthert wrote: post #672
rachofsunshine wrote: post #149

[Former member of that world, roommates with one of Ziz's friends for a while, so I feel reasonably qualified to speak on this.] The problem with rationalists/EA as a group has never been the rationality, but the people practicing it and the cultural norms they endorse as a community. As relevant here: 1) While following logical threads to their conclusions is a useful exercise, each logical step often involves some…

> (the guy makes Neil deGrasse Tyson look like a monk) So years after an investigation into the allegation of sexual misconduct ended empty handed, it's still ok to throw mud?

That seemed to be “monk” in the context of humility, not chastity

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#678

Post by ben_w »

djur wrote: post #416
ben_w wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In so far as it's an incompetent basalisk, this is a good thing. Trouble is, people are highly motivated to make the AI ever smarter. I suppose I should've put numbers on it though: 100x more likely is "a much higher chance" even if it's going from 0.01% to 1%.

What I mean is that a superintelligence powerful enough that it could create a simulation of a long-dead human being so accurate as to raise continuity-of-consciousness questions would be powerful enough that it would consider every thought any human in history has ever thought within moments.

The specific detail of digital resurrection, I'd agree. I don't think that's plausible.

I'm conflating the original with a much lighter form of it, a dumb-smart AI that's role-playing as one with all the power of a government: sure, compared to the original this is vastly less bad, but still so bad as to be incomprehensibly awful. Merely Pol Pot on steroids rather than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Sc... crossed with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Detail

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#679

Post by loanedempathy »

sunshowers wrote: post #548
PaulHoule wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have any unusual identity (e.g. a person inhabited by a fox spirit) you have a responsibility to be the person you can because you could be the first person in that category they meet. I grew up in Manchester, NH which was almost 100% white until 1990 or so. [1] My family was out for a bike ride and got a flat. A black couple (the man had just been transferred to the Raytheon factory where they make the radar…

Are your utterances here helping the cause of trans liberation, or hurting it?

> Are your utterances here helping the cause of trans liberation, or hurting it?

I get that it's been a rough couple of weeks for trans people, and immigrants, and people who due import and export, and grant-writers--but perhaps you should take a moment to reflect on how comments like this reflect on you and trans people to the general populace (which is adjacent to the point made by the comment you were replying to).

All you had to write was "Do you think this state of affairs works for or against trans people?", or even "I'm not sure I understand which direction you're going with this, could you elaborate?"

Instead, you picked an us-vs-them phrasing and were shitty.

Let me give some blunt feedback:

Trans people (the ones that are clockable) are a relative novelty outside of urban areas, and most of the voting public (much as the gays faced before) don't have any familiarity with them outside of either: scaremongering from the conservatives and tabloids, excessively fawning presentation in movies and shows and liberal/progressive media, or spicy tweets and posts on Twitter and Facebook.

Normies don't really know about the boring, relatable parts of being trans--finding clothes that fit correctly, struggling to feel that your body is right, dealing with stupid bureaucracy that doesn't match your needs, being unable to get competent or affordable healthcare, looking for a partner that loves you for being you and not because of how you look or what they think you are. (You'll note: these are, modulo some biological issues, exactly the same things that they face too.)

The trans people aren't doing themselves any favors (especially the ones in tech, who are incredibly privileged and until recently inhabited a rarified atmosphere of good pay and performative catering) when interacting with normies, though. When people like you act like assholes it confirms every negative stereotype.

Honestly? It's exhausting. It's tiring. It's enough to drive away the allies and friendlies that aren't already getting driven away by those of you with personality disorders.

The trans friends and partners I've had that are decent and capable of relating on a normal level are vastly outnumbered by the catty, annoying, neurotic transgendered men and women I've encountered in my career and schooling.

Go on Mastodon, go onto the Fediverse, and tell me with a straight face that your average trans poster isn't at least as likely to be as toxic as somebody on Twitter. Go look at the self-congratulatory bullshit to own the MAGA folks...all the way up until the election that has so many of you freaking out. Go look at the immediate closing of ranks and decrying "transphobe! transphobe!" when one of your group does something shitty and gets called out for it--even when they deserve it.

If you want to know why the popular support for trans people isn't great, look in the mirror and consider if you want to double down on a losing strategy for behavior.

The current swing of the pendulum is not good, it is not kind, it is not entirely fair--but it sure as hell isn't inexplicable. Good luck to you in the coming years.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#680

Post by incrudible »

shoo wrote: post #623
novok wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed years ago too that AI doomers and rationalist type were very prone to (infinity * 0 = infinity) types of traps, which is a fairly autistic way of thinking. Humanity long time ago decided that infinity * 0 = 0 for very good practical reasons.

> Humanity long time ago decided that infinity * 0 = 0 I'm guessing you don't mean this in any formal mathematical sense, without context, infinity multiplied by zero isn't formally defined. There could be various formulations and contexts where you could define / calculate something like infinity * zero to evaluate to whatever you want. (e.g. define f(x) := C x and g(x) := 1/x, What does f(x) * g(x) evaluate to in t…

> That humans regard the expected value of (arbitrarily large impact) * (arbitrarily small probability) as zero?

There are many arguments that go something like this: We don't know the probability of , but because it is considered a maximally bad outcome, any means to prevent it are justified. You will see these types of arguments made to justify radical measures against climate change or AI research, but also in favor space colonization.

These types of arguments are "not even wrong", they can't be mathematically rigorous, because all terms in that equation are undefined, even if you move away from infinities. The nod to mathematics is purely for aesthetics.

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