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Why are there so many rationalist cults?

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Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#891

Post by bondarchuk »

godelski wrote: post #890
bondarchuk wrote: post #887

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the big difference between our views is that you are taking the rationalist argument to be "from intelligence follows malice, therefore it will want to kill us all" whereas I take it to be "from intelligence follows great capability and no morality, therefore it may or may not kill us uncaringly in pursuit of other goals".

> you are taking the rationalist argument to be I think they say P(doom) is high number[0]. Or in other words, AGI is likely to kill us. I interpret this as "if we make a really intelligent machine it is very likely to kill us all." My interpretation is mainly biased on them saying "if we build a really intelligent machine, it is very likely to kill us all." Yud literally wrote a book titled "If Anyone Builds It, Eve…

Yes, I agree they are saying it is likely going to kill us all. My interpretation is consistent with that, and so is yours. The difference is in why/how it will kill us; you sound to me like you think the rationalist position is that from intelligence follows malice, and therefore it will kill us. I think that's a wrong interpretation of their views.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#892

Post by empiricus »

godelski wrote: post #877
empiricus wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And about this second comment, I agree that intelligence is bounded. We can discuss how much more intelligence is theoretically possible, but even if limit ourselves to extrapolation from human variance (agency of musk, math smart of von neumann, manipulative as trump, etc), and add a little more speed and parallelism (100 times faster, 100 copies cooperating), then we can get pretty far. Also I agree we are all pret…

> How lucky do you feel? I don't gamble. But I am confident P(doom) is quite low. Despite that, I do take AI safety quite seriously and literally work on the fundamental architectures of these things. You don't need P(doom) to be high for you to take doom seriously. The probability isn't that consequential when we consider such great costs. All that matters is the probability is not approximately zero. But all you P(…

Thank you for the thoughtful response. At the first read I was like everything looks reasonably correct. However you present the doom argument as being dividing and causing the race, when in fact is probably the only argument for cooperation and slowing the race.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#893

Post by ben_w »

coldtea wrote: post #810
stickfigure wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're falling into some sort of fallacy; maybe a better rationalist than I could name it. The "they" you are describing is a large body of disparate people spread around the world. We're reading an article that focuses on a few dysfunctional subgroups. They are interesting because they are so dysfunctional and rare. Or put it this way: Name one -ism that _doesn't_ have sub/splinter groups that kill people. Even Paci…

> The "they" you are describing is a large body of disparate people spread around the world. And that "large body" has a few hundred core major figures and prominent adherents, and a hell of a lot of them seem to be exactly like how the parent describes. Even the "tamer" of them like ASC have that cultish quality... As for the rest of the "large body", the hangers on, those are mostly out of view anyway, but I doubt…

>> Or put it this way: Name one -ism that _doesn't_ have sub/splinter groups that kill people

> -isms include fascism, nazism, jihadism, nationalism, communism, nationalism, racism, etc, so not exactly the best argument to make in rationalism's defense. "Yeah, rationalism has groups that murder people, but after all didn't fascism had those too?

Catholicism, empiricism, pragmatism, presenteeism.

Crusades; French revolution specifically; death penalty in general; IDK going postal?

More relevantly, given the number of people as per my other comment*, multiplied by e.g. the USA per-100k homicide rate** would lead to 166385 / 1e5 * 5.763 ~= 9.6 homicide victims in that group per year. Given many homicides are by people who are very close to the victim, this also suggests a similar (lower, but similar) expectation value for attackers.

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44885822

** USA because I am lazy and don't want to spend time guessing and adjusting for the global distribution of group members, but also do consider the USA is an outlier in high-income nations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2021_Homicide_rates_in_hi...

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#894

Post by n4r9 »

qcnguy wrote: post #829
n4r9 wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where you're getting this from. Repeated studies continue to affirm that COVID is spread by respiratory droplets and that masks are effective in reducing transmission. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8721651/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-mask-effectiveness-what-sc... https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/how-we-are-doing/research-ou... Why do you believe the Diamond Princess is a counterexample?

Your first link is agreeing with me. "Wang et al. review recent advances ... The authors suggest that airborne transmission may be the dominant form of transmission for several respiratory pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2" (airborne transmission here means not via droplets but gaseous clouds of the type that just go around or through masks). Anyway. Case study: Diamond Princess was a cruise ship at sea (i.e. sealed en…

> If you narrow it down to just studies that use the scientific method correctly and which are built on strong evidence, no convincing findings remain.

That's a significantly weaker claim than the "masks did nothing" claim you've made in other posts [0-1]. And yes, the Cochrane review stated an inconclusive result; it explicitly doesn't say that masks do nothing. Nor does it really support what you're saying.

Firstly, note that the Cochrane review reviewed the effectiveness of promoting mask-wearing. Not the effectiveness of mask-wearing. It heavily weighted studies with a low (40-50%) adherence to mask-wearing [2]. This limits what it tells us about how well masks work.

Secondly, the Cochrane review arguably overstates its case. There were two randomised controlled trials studying the effectiveness of mask-wearing during the pandemic. The first found that promoting mask-wearing in rural Bangladesh increased mask-wearing by about 30% and reduced the risk of COVID-19-like illness by about 10% [3]. The second found that promoting mask-wearing reduced coronavirus infection by about 18% [4], but the low sample size meant that it could only detect very large effects of 50% of more [5], and the adherence was again low at 46%. Many leading experts in epidemiology believe that this points to a small but worthwhile reduction in COVID transmission when mask-wearing is promoted [6], implying that correctly wearing masks hass a significant effect in reducing transmission.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44882816

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44885801

[2] https://www.cochrane.org/about-us/news/statement-physical-in...

[3] https://poverty-action.org/publication/impact-community-mask...

[4] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817

[5] https://www.factcheck.org/2020/11/danish-study-doesnt-prove-...

[6] https://www.factcheck.org/2023/03/scicheck-what-the-cochrane...

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#895

Post by vintermann »

human_person wrote: post #389
MajimasEyepatch wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this way about some of the more extreme effective altruists. There is no room for uncertainty or recognition of the way that errors compound. - "We should focus our charitable endeavors on the problems that are most impactful, like eradicating preventable diseases in poor countries." Cool, I'm on board. - "I should do the job that makes the absolute most amount of money possible, like starting a crypto exchang…

"I should do the job that makes the absolute most amount of money possible, like starting a crypto exchange, so that I can use my vast wealth in the most effective way." Has always really bothered me because it assumes that there are no negative impacts of the work you did to get the money. If you do a million dollars worth of damage to the world and earn 100k (or a billion dollars worth of damage to earn a million d…

There's a hidden (or not so hidden) assumption in the EA's "calculations" that capitalism is great and climate change isn't a big deal. (You pretty much have to believe the latter to believe the former).

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#896

Post by vintermann »

cogman10 wrote: post #535
emseetech wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you so sure the 9/11 hijackers rejected reason? Why Are So Many Terrorists Engineers? https://archive.is/XA4zb Self-described rationalists can and often do rationalize acts and beliefs that seem baldly irrational to others.

Here's the thing, the goals of the terrorists weren't irrational. People confuse "rational" with "moral". Those aren't the same thing. You can perfectly rationally do something that is immoral with a bad goal. For example, if you value your life above all others, then it would be perfectly rational to slaughter an orphanage if a more powerful entity made that your only choice for survival. Morally bad, rationally cor…

Yes, there's no such thing as rationality except rationality towards a goal.

But Big R Rationalists assume that if we were rational enough (in an exotic, goal-independent way nebulously called intelligence), we'd all agree on the goals.

So basically there is no morality. No right or wrong, only smart or stupid, and guess who they think are the smart ones.

And this isn't an original philosophy at all. Plato certainly believed it (and if you believe Plato, Socrates too). Norse pagans believed it. And everyone who believes it seem to sink into mystery religion, where you can get access to the secret wisdom if you talk to the right guy who's in the know.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#897

Post by propter_hoc »

The major problem I see in this group is that they have constructed a self-identity of being intelligent. This means that by being part of a Rationalist group, a person can claim to have insight into things that "the rest of the world doesn't understand."

Which, because (1) self-identifying as intelligent/insightful does not mean you are actually so; (2) you are following the "brain reprogramming" processes of some kind of comvincing leader; is a straight shot to NXIVM style apocalyptic cultism.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#898

Post by antisthenes »

JohnMakin wrote: post #851
antisthenes wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, do enlighten then. Absolutely. Just in case your keyboard wasn't working to arrive at this link via Google. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/axiom First definition, just in case it still isn't obvious. > I'm not sure you are responding to the right comment, or are severely misinterpreting what I said. Clearly a nerve was struck though, and I do apologize for any undue distress. Someone was wrong on th…

Ah, I see the confusion now. It is you that actually does not know what the word means or how it was used in this context. Several hundred other people seemed to have avoided this confusion though, and you still haven’t said how it was used wrong, so I can safely dismiss you as a troll. hint: it was once axiomatic that the sun revolved around the earth. Hope that helps!

Quantity of idiots agreeing with someone does not make someone right. Keep being delusional.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#899

Post by 1718627440 »

davidgerard wrote: post #739
skybrian wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WHO didn't declare a global pandemic until March 11, 2020 [1]. That's a little slow and some rationalists were earlier than that. (Other people too.) After reading a warning from a rationalist blog, I posted a lot about COVID news to another forum and others there gave me credit for giving the heads-up that it was a Big Deal and not just another thing in the news. (Not sure it made all that much difference, thoug…

I worked at the British Medical Journal at the time. We got wind of COVID being a big thing in January. I spent January to March to get our new VPN into a fit state that the whole company could do their whole jobs from home. 23 March was lockdown and we were ready and had a very busy year. That COVID was going to be big was obvious to a lot of people and groups who were paying attention. We were a health-related org,…

The first time I read about covid, was in a (printed) computer magazine as a side note about government oppression in China. At that time I didn't even memorized the name, because I just didn't heard about it from any other source.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#900

Post by 1718627440 »

immibis wrote: post #844
azangru wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In particular I think what confused people was that the standard blue surgical masks are somewhat effective at stopping an infected person from passing on covid (and various other things), but not hugely effective at preventing the wearer from contracting covid Yes, exactly. If we look at guidelines about influenza, we will see them say that "surgical masks are not considered adequate respiratory protection for air…

And any protection is better than no protection, even if it only reduces your chance by 30% or whatever - it's unlikely to make things worse .

But that chance matters whether you can punish people who don't do it.
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