[TODO: recap of previous three posts
-Recapping our Whole Dumb Story so far—in a previous post, "Sexual Dimorphism in Yudkowsky's Sequences, in Relation to My Gender Problems", I explained the thing about how I've always (since puberty) had this obsessive sexual fantasy about
+Recapping my Whole Dumb Story so far—in a previous post, ["Sexual Dimorphism in Yudkowsky's Sequences, in Relation to My Gender Problems"](/2021/May/sexual-dimorphism-in-the-sequences-in-relation-to-my-gender-problems/), I explained the thing about how I've always (since puberty) had this obsessive sexual fantasy about
-In a subsequent post, "Blanchard's Dangerous Idea and the Plight of the Lucid Crossdreamer",
+In a subsequent post, ["Blanchard's Dangerous Idea and the Plight of the Lucid Crossdreamer"](/2023/Jul/blanchards-dangerous-idea-and-the-plight-of-the-lucid-crossdreamer/),
-In a subsequent–subsequent post, "A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning",
+In a subsequent–subsequent post, ["A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning"](/2023/Jul/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning/),
In a subsequent–subsequent–subsequent post, "If Clarity Seems Like Death to Them",
—which would have been the end of the story, _except that_, as I explained in a subsequent–subsequent post, ["A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning"](/2023/Jul/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning/), in late 2018, Eliezer Yudkowsky prevaricated about his own philosophy of language in the service of the gender-identity coalition, and my unsuccessful attempts to get him to clarify led me and allies to conclude that Yudkowsky and his "rationalists" were corrupt.
-Anyway, given that the "rationalists" were fake and that we needed something better, there remained the question of what to do about that, and how to relate to the old thing, and the operators of the marketing machine for the old thing.
+Anyway, given that the "rationalists" were fake and that we needed something better, there remained the question of what to do about that, and how to relate to the old thing.
-_I_ had been hyperfocused on prosecuting my Category War, but the reason Michael and Ben and Jessica were willing to help me out on that was not because they particularly cared about the gender and categories example, but because it seemed like a manifestation of a _more general_ problem of epistemic rot in "the community".
+_I_ had been hyperfocused on prosecuting my Category War, but the reason Michael Vassar and Ben Hoffman and Jessica Taylor were willing to help me out on that was not because they particularly cared about the gender and categories example, but because it seemed like a manifestation of a more general problem of epistemic rot in "the community".
Ben had [previously](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/givewell-and-partial-funding/) [written](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/effective-altruism-is-self-recommending/) a lot [about](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/openai-makes-humanity-less-safe/) [problems](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/against-responsibility/) [with](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/against-neglectedness/) Effective Altruism. Jessica had had a bad time at MIRI, as she had told me back in March, and would [later](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KnQs55tjxWopCzKsk/the-ai-timelines-scam) [write](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experience-at-and-around-miri-and-cfar-inspired-by-zoe) [about](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pQGFeKvjydztpgnsY/occupational-infohazards). To what extent were my thing, and Ben's thing, and Jessica's thing, manifestations of "the same" underlying problem? Or had we all become disaffected with the mainstream "rationalists" for our own idiosyncratic reasons, and merely randomly fallen into each other's, and Michael's, orbit?
> Date: Sunday 13 September 2020 11:02 _a.m._
> Subject: Re: out of patience
>
-> [... redacted] The sinful and corrupted part wasn't the _initial_ Tweets; the sinful and corrupted part is this **bullshit stonewalling** when your Twitter followers and me and Michael and Ben and Sarah and [redacted] and Jessica tried to point out the problem. I've _never_ been arguing against your private universe [... redacted]; the thing I'm arguing against in ["Where to Draw the Boundaries?"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/esRZaPXSHgWzyB2NL/where-to-draw-the-boundaries) (and **my [unfinished draft sequel](https://github.com/zackmdavis/Category_War/blob/cefa98c3abe/unnatural_categories_are_optimized_for_deception.md)**, although that's more focused on what Scott wrote) is the **_actual text_ you _actually published_, not your private universe.**
+> [... redacted] The sinful and corrupted part wasn't the _initial_ Tweets; the sinful and corrupted part is this **bullshit stonewalling** when your Twitter followers and me and Michael and Ben and Sarah and ["Riley"] and Jessica tried to point out the problem. I've _never_ been arguing against your private universe [... redacted]; the thing I'm arguing against in ["Where to Draw the Boundaries?"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/esRZaPXSHgWzyB2NL/where-to-draw-the-boundaries) (and **my [unfinished draft sequel](https://github.com/zackmdavis/Category_War/blob/cefa98c3abe/unnatural_categories_are_optimized_for_deception.md)**, although that's more focused on what Scott wrote) is the **_actual text_ you _actually published_, not your private universe.**
>
> [... redacted] you could just **publicly clarify your position on the philosophy of language** the way an intellectually-honest person would do if they wanted their followers to have correct beliefs about the philosophy of language?!
>
_ex cathedra_ statement that gender categories are not an exception to the rule, only 1 year and 8 months after asking for it
]
-And really, that _should_ have been the end of the story. At the trifling cost of two years of my life, we finally got a clarification from Yudkowsky that you can't define the word _woman_ any way you like. I didn't think I was entitled to anything more than that. I was satisfied. If I hadn't been further provoked, I wouldn't have occasion to continue waging the robot-cult religious civil war.
-
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If this were an autobiography (which existed to tell my life story) rather than a topic-focused memoir (which exists because my life happens to contain this Whole Dumb Story which bears on matters of broader interest, even if my life would not otherwise be interesting), there's a dramatic episode that would fit here chronologically.
-----
-I still published ["Unnatural Categories Are Optimized for Deception"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/onwgTH6n8wxRSo2BJ/unnatural-categories-are-optimized-for-deception) in January 2021.
+I published ["Unnatural Categories Are Optimized for Deception"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/onwgTH6n8wxRSo2BJ/unnatural-categories-are-optimized-for-deception) in January 2021.
I wrote back to Abram Demski regarding his comments from fourteen months before: on further thought, he was right. Even granting my point that evolution didn't figure out how to track probability and utility separately, as Abram had pointed out, the _fact_ that it didn't meant that not tracking it could be an effective AI design. Just because evolution takes shortcuts that human engineers wouldn't didn't mean shortcuts are "wrong". (Rather, there are laws governing which kinds of shortcuts _work_.)
Abram was also right that it would be weird if reflective coherence was somehow impossible: the AI shouldn't have to fundamentally reason differently about "rewriting code in some 'external' program" and "rewriting 'its own' code." In that light, it made sense to regard "have accurate beliefs" as _merely_ a convergent instrumental subgoal, rather than what rationality is about—as sacrilegious as that felt to type.
And yet, somehow, "have accurate beliefs" seemed _more fundamental_ than other convergent instrumental subgoals like "seek power and resources". Could this be made precise? As a stab in the dark, was it possible that the [theorems on the ubiquity of power-seeking](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6DuJxY8X45Sco4bS2/seeking-power-is-often-robustly-instrumental-in-mdps) might generalize to a similar conclusion about "accuracy-seeking"? If it _didn't_, the reason why it didn't might explain why accuracy seems more fundamental.
+
+------
+
+And really, that _should_ have been the end of the story. At the trifling cost of two years of my life, we finally got a clarification from Yudkowsky that you can't define the word _woman_ any way you like. I didn't think I was entitled to anything more than that. I was satisfied. If I hadn't been further provoked, I wouldn't have occasion to continue waging the robot-cult religious civil war.
Notes from pt. 3–6 readthrough (post publication of pt. 1–2)—
_ fullname Taylor and Hoffman at start of pt. 3
+_ footnote clarifying that "Riley" and Sarah weren't core members of the group, despite being included on some emails?
_ be more specific about Ben's anti-EA and Jessica's anti-MIRI things, perhaps in footnotes
_ Ben on "locally coherent coordination": use direct quotes for Ben's language—maybe rewrite in my own language (footnote?) as an understanding test
_ set context for "EA Has a Lying Problem" (written by Sarah, likely with Michael's influence—maybe ask Sarah)
_ cut lots of words from December 2019 blogging spree
_ in a footnote, defend the "cutting my dick off" rhetorical flourish
_ mention Nick Bostrom email scandal (and his not appearing on the one-sentence CAIS statement)
-_ somewhere: mention that "Not Man for the Categories" keeps getting cited
_ revise and cut words from "bad faith" section since can link to "Assume Bad Faith"
_ cut words from January 2020 Twitter exchange (after war criminal defenses)
_ revise reply to Xu
_ cut lots of words from Scotts comments on Jessica's MIRI post (keep: "attempting to erase the agency", Scott blaming my troubles on Michael being absurd)
+_ do I have a better identifier than "Vassarite"?
+_ maybe I do want to fill in a few more details about the Sasha disaster, conditional on what I end up writing regarding Scott's prosecution?—and conditional on my separate retro email—also the Zolpidem thing
-TODO blocks—
-_ "Lenore" psychiatric disaster
-- Eliezerfic fight conclusion
+slotted TODO blocks—
+✓ psychiatric disaster
+_ "Agreeing With Stalin" intro recap
+_ recap of crimes, cont'd
+_ Dolphin War finish
+_ lead-in to Sept. 2021 Twitter altercation
_ Michael Vassar and the Theory of Optimal Gossip
_ plan to reach out to Rick / Michael on creepy men/crazy men
_ reaction to Ziz
_ State of Steven
_ complicity and friendship
_ out of patience email
-_ the hill he wants to die on
-_ recap of crimes, cont'd
-_ lead-in to Sept. 2021 Twitter altercation
-_ Dolphin War finish
-_ "Agreeing With Stalin" intro recap
-_ Tail vs. Bailey / Davis vs. Yudkowsky analogy (somewhere)
+- Eliezerfic fight conclusion
+
+blocks to fit somewhere—
+_ the hill he wants to die on (insert somewhere in "Standing")
+_ Tail vs. Bailey / Davis vs. Yudkowsky analogy (new block somewhere)
+_ mention that "Not Man for the Categories" keeps getting cited
+
------
-----
-
-
+bullet notes for Tail analogy—
+ * My friend Tailcalled is better at science than me; in the hours that I've wasted with personal, political, and philosophical writing, he's actually been running surveys and digging into statistical methodology.
+ * As a result of his surveys, Tail was convinced of the two-type taxonomy, started /r/Blanchardianism, &c.
+ * Arguing with him resulted in my backing away from pure BBL ("Useful Approximation")
+ * Later, he became disillusioned with "Blanchardians" and went to war against them. I kept telling him he _is_ a "Blanchardian", insofar as he largely agrees with the main findings (about AGP as a major cause). He corresponded with Bailey and became frustrated with Bailey's ridigity. Blanchardians market themselves as disinterest truthseekers, but a lot of what they're actually doing is providing a counternarrative to social justice.
+ * There's an analogy between Tail's antipathy for Bailey and my antipathy for Yudkowsky: I still largely agree with "the rationalists", but the way especially Yudkowsky markets himself as a uniquely sane thinker
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> I remember being like nine years old and thinking something along the lines of 'hmm, [name] looks like a woman, and has a girl name, but she sounds like a guy?? what's up with that??' before ultimately concluding that Presumably my parents knew what gender she was and they were using a girl name and female pronouns for her, so therefore she was a girl
https://www.reddit.com/r/ftm/comments/16ko1jj/i_dont_get_along_with_guys/
+
+https://www.thecut.com/article/adult-friendships-vs-kids.html She's not ideological about it like I am.
+
_ If Clarity Seems Like Death to Them (April 2019–January 2021)
_ On the Public Anti-Epistemology of dath ilan
_ Agreeing With Stalin in Ways that Exhibit Generally Rationalist Principles (February 2021)
-_ Standing Under the Same Sky (April 2021–December 2022)
+_ Standing Under the Same Sky (April 2021–December 2022)
Minor—
_ Trans Kids on the Margin, and Harms From Misleading Training Data
_ Book Review: Charles Murray's Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race in America (with coda)
+_ Thoughts on Being Single and Childless at 35 (working title)
_ Escort (cut §, needs title)?
_ Biological Sex Actually Exists
_ Racial Pseudoscience on the Faculty https://archive.ph/ZxVYk
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / commitdiff