**Postscript**
-If Yudkowsky is obviously playing dumb (consciously or not) and his comments can't be taken seriously, what's _actually_ going on here? He graciously grants us a clue in the form of [a disclaimer comment](https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10159421750419228?comment_id=10159421833274228) on the Facebook post:
+This object-level argument about pronoun conventions is probably not very interesting to many readers. What is perhaps more interesting is to jump up a meta level and ask: why Eliezer Yudkowsky playing dumb like this? If his comments obviously can't be taken seriously, what's _actually_ going on here?
+
+(But on pain of committing [Bulverism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism), it's important that I wrote up the object-level refutation _first_ as a top level post, before engaging in [the fraught endeavor of speculating about psychology](https://arbital.com/p/psychologizing/) in this mere postscript comment.)
+
+Fortunately, Yudkowsky graciously grants us a clue in the form of [a disclaimer comment](https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10159421750419228?comment_id=10159421833274228) on the Facebook post:
> It unfortunately occurs to me that I must, in cases like these, disclaim that—to the extent there existed sensible opposing arguments against what I have just said—people might be reluctant to speak them in public, in the present social atmosphere. That is, in the logical counterfactual universe where I knew of very strong arguments against freedom of pronouns, I would have probably stayed silent on the issue, as would many other high-profile community members, and only Zack M. Davis would have said anything where you could hear it.
>
> This is a filter affecting your evidence; it has not to my own knowledge filtered out a giant valid counterargument that invalidates this whole post. I would have kept silent in that case, for to speak then would have been dishonest.
-I claim that
+I claim that my point that _she_ and _he_ have existing meanings that you can't just ignore by fiat given that the existing meanings are _exactly_ what motivate people to ask for new pronouns in the first place, is a giant valid counterargument that invalidates the claim that "the simplest and best protocol is, '"He" refers to the set of people who have asked us to use "he", with a default for those-who-haven't-asked that goes by gamete size' and to say that this just *is* the normative definition."
+
+(It doesn't invalidate the whole post: the part about English being badly designed is fine.)
+
+Moreover, I claim that this point is _obvious_.
+
+
+
+
+
-is a giant valid counterargument that invalidates the
-(Not the whole post—the part about English being badly designed is fine.)
> Personally, I'm used to operating without the cognitive support of a civilization in controversial domains, and have some confidence in my own ability to independently invent everything important that would be on the other side of the filter and check it myself before speaking. So you know, from having read this, that I checked all the speakable and unspeakable arguments I had thought of, and concluded that this speakable argument would be good on net to publish, as would not be the case if I knew of a stronger but unspeakable counterargument in favor of Gendered Pronouns For Everyone and Asking To Leave The System Is Lying.
>
> But the existence of a wide social filter like that should be kept in mind; to whatever quantitative extent you don't trust your ability plus my ability to think of valid counterarguments that might exist, as a Bayesian you should proportionally update in the direction of the unknown arguments you speculate might have been filtered out.
-So, the explanation of [the problem of political censorship filtering evidence](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DoPo4PDjgSySquHX8/heads-i-win-tails-never-heard-of-her-or-selective-reporting) here is great, but the part where Yudkowsky claims "confidence in [his] own ability to independently invent everything important that would be on the other side of the filter" is just _laughable_. My point that _she_ and _he_ have existing meanings that you can't just ignore by fiat given that the existing meanings are _exactly_ what motivate people to ask for new pronouns in the first place is _really obvious_.
+So, the explanation of [the problem of political censorship filtering evidence](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DoPo4PDjgSySquHX8/heads-i-win-tails-never-heard-of-her-or-selective-reporting) here is great, but the part where Yudkowsky claims "confidence in [his] own ability to independently invent everything important that would be on the other side of the filter" is just _laughable_.
+
+
The original post isn't _that_ bad if you assume that Yudkowsky was writing off the cuff, that he clearly just _didn't put any effort whatsoever_ into thinking about why someone might disagree. If he _did_ put in the effort—enough that he felt comfortable bragging about his ability to see the other side of the argument—and _still_ ended up proclaiming his "simplest and best protocol" without even so much as _mentioning_ any of its incredibly obvious costs ... that's just _pathetic_. If someone's ability to explore the space of arguments is _that_ bad, why would you trust their opinion about _anything_?
https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1404700330927923206
> That is: there's a story here where not just particular people hounding Zack as a responsive target, but a whole larger group, are engaged in a dark conspiracy that is all about doing damage on issues legible to Zack and important to Zack. This is merely implausible on priors.
-I feel I've outlived myself https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4166378/
\ No newline at end of file
+I feel I've outlived myself https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4166378/
+
+> Admitting something when being pushed a little, but never thinking it spontaneously and hence having those thoughts absent from your own thought processes, remains not sane.
+https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1501218503990431745
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / commitdiff