At this point, some readers might protest that I'm being too uncharitable in harping on the "not liking to be tossed into a [...] Bucket" paragraph. The same post also explicitly says that "[i]t's not that no truth-bearing propositions about these issues can possibly exist." I agree that there are some interpretations of "not lik[ing] to be tossed into a Male Bucket or Female Bucket" that make sense, even though biological sex denialism does not make sense. Given that the author is Eliezer Yudkowsky, should I not give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he meant to communicate the reading that does make sense, rather than the reading that doesn't make sense?
-I reply: _given that the author is Eliezer Yudkowsky_—no, obviously not. I have been ["trained in a theory of social deception that says that people can arrange reasons, excuses, for anything"](https://www.glowfic.com/replies/1820866#reply-1820866), such that it's informative ["to look at what _ended up_ happening, assume it was the _intended_ result, and ask who benefited."](http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/47) Yudkowsky is just too talented a writer for it to be a coincidence that his rational analysis of pronoun conventions just happens to affirm trans activist sensibilities and to avoid mentioning any specific unfavorable truth-bearing propositions about these issues that could possibly exist. Where the text is ambiguous about whether biological sex is a real thing that people should be able to talk about despite someone's "not lik[ing] to be tossed into a Male Bucket or Female Bucket", I think it's ambiguous for a reason.
+I reply: _given that the author is Eliezer Yudkowsky_—no, obviously not. I have been ["trained in a theory of social deception that says that people can arrange reasons, excuses, for anything"](https://www.glowfic.com/replies/1820866#reply-1820866), such that it's informative ["to look at what _ended up_ happening, assume it was the _intended_ result, and ask who benefited."](http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/47) If Yudkowsky just wanted to post about how gendered pronouns in English are unnecessary and bad as an apolitical matter of language design, he could have written a post making that point without coupling it to a [self-undermining reform proposal](/2022/Mar/challenges-to-yudkowskys-pronoun-reform-proposal/) and sanctimonious flag-waving in support of people "not lik[ing] to be tossed into a Male Bucket or Female Bucket". Where the text is ambiguous about whether biological sex is a real thing that people should be able to talk about, I think it's ambiguous for a reason.
When smart people act dumb, it's often wise to conjecture that their behavior represents [_optimized_ stupidity](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sXHQ9R5tahiaXEZhR/algorithmic-intent-a-hansonian-generalized-anti-zombie)—apparent "stupidity" that achieves a goal through some channel other than their words straightforwardly reflecting reality. Someone who was actually stupid wouldn't be able to generate text so carefully fine-tuned to reach a gender-politically convenient conclusion without explicitly invoking any controversial gender-political reasoning. I think the point is to pander to biological sex denialists without technically saying anything unambiguously false that someone could call out as a "lie."
pt. 4 edit tier—
✓ "A Fire" § title
-_ revise the start of §6 to say he came by core pronoun stance honestly
-_ revise "too good a writer" to be more explicit "someone could be that naive"
-_ footnote about how I could be blamed for being too credulous
+✓ revise "too good a writer" to be more explicit "someone could be that naive"
+_ footnote about how I could be blamed for being too credulous?
_ say that explicitly, up front, at the start of that … chunk.
_ edit post to clarify "nudging the cognition"
-_ revise start of §6 to say that
-_ look for a place to link "Faction formation"
_ Tail's objection to FFS example
_ Brennan "everyone else should participate" needs more wording adjustments
_ the mailing list post noted it as a "common sexual fantasy"
_ Sept. 2020 clarification noted that a distinction should be made between
_ emphasize that 2018 thread was policing TERF-like pronoun usage, not just disapproving of gender-based pronouns
-_ https://cognition.cafe/p/on-lies-and-liars
+_ look for a place to link http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/
+_ look for a place to link https://cognition.cafe/p/on-lies-and-liars
_ cite more sneers; use a footnote to pack in as many as possible
_ Dawkins and Jerry Coyne and https://www.thefp.com/p/carole-hooven-why-i-left-harvard
+_ make sure I'm summarizing "Challenges" appropriately
time-sensitive globals TODOs—
✓ consult Said
✓ patriate-links script TODOs
-_ remaining pt. 4 edit tier
-_ draft Twitter thread
-_ draft #drama strategy comments
+- remaining pt. 4 edit tier
+- draft #drama strategy opening remarks
_ consult Anna
+_ draft Twitter thread
_ #drama strategy session
_ bully Jeff Ladish
_ PUBLISH pt. 4!!
https://arbital.greaterwrong.com/p/logical_dt/?l=5gc
It even leaked into Big Yud!!! "Counterfactuals were made for humanity, not humanity for counterfactuals."
+Still citing it (13 Feb 24): https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kSq5qiafd6SqQoJWv/technologies-and-terminology-ai-isn-t-software-it-s-deepware
+
At least I don't have to link the rebuttal myself every time:
https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,1553.msg38755.html
https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/10vx6gk/the_categories_were_made_for_man_not_man_for_the/j7k8fjc/
02/10/2024,118628,0\r
02/11/2024,118630,2\r
02/12/2024,118637,7\r
-02/13/2024,,
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+02/13/2024,118639,2\r
+02/14/2024,,
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-If you only want to read one of the 20K-word posts in this sequence, I'd skip this one and return next week for the part where I explain how Eliezer Yudkowsky has not been consistently candid in his communications with his followers, hindering their ability to exercise their responsibilities.
+Eliezer Yudkowsky has not been consistently candid in his communications with his followers, hindering their ability to exercise their responsibilities.
+
+----------
+
+So, I'm about ready to publish my loud public denunciation of Yudkowsky for intellectual dishonesty (as pt. 4 of my memoir sequence). Is anyone interested in offering advice or "hostile advice" (trying to talk me out of something you see as destructive)?
+
+I'm eager for advice because this is a high-stakes political move and needs to be a _flawless performance_. (When you strike at a king, you must kill him.) My ideal outcome is for Eliezer to actually learn something, but since that's probably not going to happen by the Law of Continued Failure, I'll settle for dealing some amount of reputational damage.
+
+It's unpleasant for it to come to this, but at this point, I don't think I have any other options besides "lay down and die." I tried the good-faith object-level argument thing for years, and he made it very clear that he reserves the right to _ignore counterarguments on political grounds_ (because that's where his political incentives point), and that he thinks it's insane (his word choice) to get angry at people who are just following their political incentives. At that point, _my_ incentive is to cry "Fraud!" for the benefit of people who still erroneously trust him not to think that intellectual honesty is insane.
+
+[TODO: Oli gets it! Vaniver gets it!]
+
+Given that this is very obviously a conflict and not a disagreement, it seems prudent for me to strategize about what the adversary's defense is going to be—if any. He _could_ just ignore it. But he does occasionally respond to critics, and I think I'm wielding enough of a threat that he'll want to
+
+I thought about taking out a Manifold market for "Will Yudkowsky reply to [post tile] in a way that an Overcoming Bias reader in 2009 would have judged as non-evasive, as judged by [third party judge]"? (I think Ben Pace would do it.)
+
+------------
Post later (can't afford to spend more Twitter time now)—
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / commitdiff