> **Eliezer** — 11/29/2022 11:31 PM
> I think you should worry first about editing the hate-warp out of yourself, but editing the memoir might be useful practice for it. Good night.
-It turned out that I was lying about probably not talking in the server anymore. (Hedging with the word "probably" didn't make the claim true, and of course I wasn't _consciously_ lying, but that hardly seems exculpatory.)
+It turned out that I was lying about probably not talking in the server anymore. (Hedging with the word "probably" didn't make the claim true, and of course I wasn't _consciously_ lying, but that hardly seems exculpatory.) The fact that Yudkowsky had been replying to me at length—explaining why my literary criticism was nuts, but in a way that respected my humanity and expected me to be able to hear it—implied that I was apparently in his "I can cheaply save him from crazy people like Michael Vassar" bucket, rather than the "AI timelines and therefore life is too short" bucket. Maybe my presence wasn't tresspassing; maybe I had a right to speak.
The next day, I belatedly pointed out that "Keltham thought that not learning about masochists he can never have, was obviously in retrospect what he'd have wanted Civilization to do" seemed to contradict "one thing hasn't changed: the message that you, yourself, should always be trying to infer the true truth". In the first statement, it didn't sound like Keltham thinks it's good that Civilization didn't tell him so that he could figure it out for himself (in accordance with the discipline of "you, yourself, always trying to infer the truth"). It sounded like he was better off not knowing—better off having a _less accurate self-model_ (not having the concept of "obligate romantic sadism"), better off having a _less accurate world-model_ (thinking that masochism isn't real).
> only half the battle even if you could do it. you're also not reporting any facts/arguments on the other side, which is a much larger and visible gap to me, and has a lot to do with why I'm not presently considering this criticism from a peer despite your spoken adherence to virtues I value. **QUESTION FOR ZACK ONLY, NOBODY ELSE ANSWER OR SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT IN THIS MAIN CHANNEL:** What are some of the ways that Planecrash valorizes truth, as you, yourself, see that virtue?
-I chose not to ask why it was relevant whether or not I was a "peer." If we're measuring IQ[^iq-comparison] or fiction-writing ability[^fiction-comparison] or contributions to AI alignment[^alignment-comparison], I'm obviously _not_ his peer. It didn't seem like that was necessary when one could just [evaluate my arguments about dath ilan on their own merits](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5yFRd3cjLpm3Nd6Di/argument-screens-off-authority). But I wasn't going to be so impertinent to point that out when the master was testing me (!) and I was eager to pass the test.
+I chose not to ask why it was relevant whether or not I was a "peer." If we're measuring IQ[^iq-comparison] or fiction-writing ability[^fiction-comparison] or contributions to AI alignment[^alignment-comparison], I'm obviously _not_ his peer. It didn't seem like that was necessary when one could just [evaluate my arguments about dath ilan on their own merits](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5yFRd3cjLpm3Nd6Di/argument-screens-off-authority). (Also, you'd think that people who are obsessed with prediction markets—whose trustworthiness does not stem from individual traders having unimpeachably perfect cognition—would be able to appreciate the value of the somewhat older [social technology of "debate"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SX6wQEdGfzz7GKYvp/rationalist-discourse-is-like-physicist-motors).) But I wasn't going to be so impertinent to point that out when the master was testing me (!) and I was eager to pass the test.
[^iq-comparison]: [143](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1076154502326013952) _vs._ [131](/images/wisc-iii_result.jpg).
Slightly later in the thread, Yudkowsky would say that the story of _Planecrash_ was that of Keltham's innocence born of growing up in an incredibly high-functioning Society leading him to wrongfully trust Cheliax, which was not dath ilan. Someone who characterized the story as endorsing outsourcing one's epistemology, without noting that most of the story is about trusting someone wrongly and being accordingly punished by reality, would be behaving like the hostile critics of _Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality_ who harp on [Draco wanting to rape Luna](https://hpmor.com/chapter/7) without mentioning Harry's reaction to that. "[I]f you leave out very clear information like that, which contradicts the politicized story you want to tell, that's basically tantamount to lying, falling short of it only under the most technical-words versions of what it means to tell the truth", Yudkowsky said.
-[TODO: that's fine as far as it goes, but it's not very responsive to my criticisms? I agree that Keltham trusting Cheliax, which is not dath ilan doesn't endorse trust in general, but it does seem to endorse trusting dath ilan, and I'm saying dath ilan itself is not trustworthy except by ludicrous author fiat]
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-The universe of _Planecrash_ (like [almost all](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_all) universes) doesn't itself reward you for not looking places. But dath ilan as a Society _absolutely_ punishes you for looking places _if you expect to tell anyone about it_.[^punishment]
+I agree that it would be wrong to summarize the dath ilan mythos as endorsing trusting authorities in general, but this would seem somewhat beside the point of my criticism. The work depicts Keltham suffering from trusting Cheliax, which is not dath ilan, and lampoons Earth, which is not dath ilan, but my point was that _dath ilan itself is not trustworthy_ (except by ludicrous authorial assertion). The universe of _Planecrash_ (like [almost all](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_all) universes) doesn't itself reward you for not looking places. But dath ilan as a Society _absolutely_ punishes you for looking places[^punishment] if you expect to tell anyone about it—if you expect to [live in truth](https://www.vhlf.org/havel-in-the-media/living-in-truth/), rather than join the conspiracy to coordinate on false maps for the greater good.
[^punishment]: I mean "punish" in a colloquial sense, just that there are things most dath ilani get to do, like living in most cities, that my analogue in dath ilan wouldn't be allowed to do on account of his tendency to shout truths from street corners. I understand that there's a decision-theoretic sense in which this doesn't count as a "punishment", because dath ilan is only trying to advance its _own_ interests in preventing the spread of what it considers infohazards; the "punishment" makes sense for them whether or not I change my policy in response to it.
> they're living in Cheliax and you want them to behave like they're not in Cheliax and get arrested by the Church
> your issue is with Asmodeus. take it to Him, and if you can't take Him down then don't blame others who can't do that either.
-I thought the game theory was subtler than that.
-
-[TODO: the resistance has an incentive to attack collaborators; I express my fully-updated grievance (this doesn't seem to be in the transcript I saved??); I hadn't consciously steered the conversation this way, but the conversation _bounced_ in a way that made it on-topic; that's technically not my fault, even if the elephant in my brain was optimizing for this outcome.
-
-leave out very clear information like that, which contradicts the politicized story you want to tell
+I thought the game theory was subtler than that. As a member of the Chelaxian resistance, I didn't have a quarrel with ordinary citizens who kept their heads down and paid their taxes, but the more someone actively collaborated with the Asmodean regime more than they had to, the more they started to seem like a legitimate military target. Yudkowsky's history of repeatedly making sweeping public declarations about transgenderism while leaving out very clear information which contradicted the politicized story he wanted to tell made him an active collaborator, not an innocent taxpayer trying to keep his head down.[^topic-bounce]
-The fact that Yudkowsky had been replying to me at length—explaining why my literary criticism was nuts, but in a way that respected my humanity and expected me to be able to hear it—implied that I was apparently in his "I can cheaply save him (from crazy people like Michael Vassar)" bucket, rather than the "AI timelines and therefore life is too short" bucket.]
+[^topic-bounce]: It was arguably bad for me to be talking about my grivances against Yudkowsky in the fiction server (as contrasted to my complaints about dath ilan's worldbuilding, which were unambiguously on-topic). I hadn't consciously steered the conversation this way, but the conversation _bounced_ in a way that made it on-topic; that was technically not my fault, even if the elephant in my brain was optimizing for this outcome.
-It was disappointing that Yudkowsky's reaction to my complaints was (verbatim!) "that's insane", rather than something more like, "OK, I totally see why you see this as a betrayal, but unfortunately for you, I don't actually consider myself bound by what you thought I was promising."
+He couldn't claim that everyone does this and that it was therefore insane to expect better, because (picking an arbitrary example) Paul Christiano didn't make those kinds of political statements while claiming that everyone from Earth is insane unlike him (!) while claiming the right to ignore counterarguments on political grounds (!!), because Paul Christiano wasn't trying to be a religious leader.
I gave a parable (along the lines of ["it's not the incentives; it's you"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5nH5Qtax9ae8CQjZ9/tal-yarkoni-no-it-s-not-the-incentives-it-s-you) to illustrate the problem: a senior scientist publishes a paper with a conclusion favorable to an organization that gave his lab a grant. The scientist's faithful student points out a fatal flaw in the paper, and suggests publishing a retraction. The scientist says, "No, that would be bad for my career." The student gets angry. The scientist says, "You're supposed to not get angry at the people who didn't create those career incentives. That's insane. Your issue is with Moloch: the publish-or-perish incentives of grant-funded science. If you can't take that down, then don't blame others who can't do that, either."
-That is, blaming people who commit fraud (where an innocent mistake _becomes_ fraud if you refuse to acknowledge it after it's been pointed out) is _part_ of a strategy for defeating Moloch.
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-[TODO: explain how this counters Moloch; I bait Lintamande into engagement]
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-[TODO: Linta says I'm impossible to talk to and the anticipation of my pouncing stiffles discussion. (I almost wonder if this is a good thing, from a _realpolitik_ perspective? I'd prefer to argue people out of bad ideas, but if the threat of an argument disincentivizes them from spreading ...? Game theory goes both ways—I've been self-censoring, too.)]
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-I said that Lintamande was giving me a lot of good feedback about my social behavior. I was super-fighty because I was super-traumatized, and I should plausibly work on fixing that, whereas I didn't intellectually disagree that different cultures are different, different people are different. The reason I was super-fighty is because there was social–political territory I was trying to defend.
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-The thing I was trying to keep on Society's shared map was, Biological Sex Actually Exists and Is Sometimes Decision-Relevant; Biological Sex Actually Exists and is Sometimes Decision-Relevant _Even When It Makes People Sad_; Biological Sex Actually Exists and is Sometimes Decision-Relevant _Even When a Prediction Market Says It Will Make People Sad_.
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-Lintamande said they agreed with these claims. Yudkowsky replied with a "+1" emoji.
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-[TODO: Linta saying "intersex condition" was just semantics was emblematic of a disagreement-minimizing culture?]
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-[TODO: "like, if you just went and found Eliezer!2004 and were like 'hey, weird sci fi hypothetical'
-_speaking of the year 2004_; the thing I'm at war with is that I don't think he would _dare_ publish the same essay today
- ...
+That is, blaming people who commit fraud (where an innocent mistake _becomes_ fraud if you refuse to acknowledge it after it's been pointed out) is _part_ of a strategy for defeating Moloch, an attempt to coordinate on norms against fraud.
+
+[TODO—
+ * I successfully baited Lintamande, the other _Planecrash_ coauthor into engagement
+ * Linta says I'm impossible to talk to and the anticipation of my pouncing stiffles discussion. (I almost wonder if this is a good thing, from a _realpolitik_ perspective? I'd prefer to argue people out of bad ideas, but if the threat of an argument disincentivizes them from spreading ...? Game theory goes both ways—I've been self-censoring, too.)
+ * I said that Lintamande was giving me a lot of good feedback about my social behavior. I was super-fighty because I was super-traumatized, and I should plausibly work on fixing that, whereas I didn't intellectually disagree that different cultures are different, different people are different. The reason I was super-fighty is because there was social–political territory I was trying to defend.
+ * The thing I was trying to keep on Society's shared map was, Biological Sex Actually Exists and Is Sometimes Decision-Relevant; Biological Sex Actually Exists and is Sometimes Decision-Relevant _Even When It Makes People Sad_; Biological Sex Actually Exists and is Sometimes Decision-Relevant _Even When a Prediction Market Says It Will Make People Sad_. Lintamande said they agreed with these claims. Yudkowsky replied with a "+1" emoji.
+ * "like, if you just went and found Eliezer!2004 and were like 'hey, weird sci fi hypothetical'"
+_speaking of the year 2004_; the thing I'm at war with is that I don't think he would _dare_ publish the same essay today The 2004 mailing list post was almost _mocking_ the guy, for being so naïve, for not seeing the type mismatch between the deep structure of reality, and mentalistic fantasies vaguely gestured at with English words.
+ * And the 2016–2021 posts _couldn't even acknolwedge that Biological Sex Actually Exists_. Did Yudkowsky expect us not to _notice_?? Coming from anyone else in the world, I wouldn't have minded. But the _conjunction_ of these political games and the eliezera racial supremacy rhetoric was just _insulting_.
+ * April said she didn't think the "Changing Emotions" argument was making claims relevant to trans people. The only claim you really needed was that it was reasonable for cis men and trans men, and cis women and trans women, to be in the same category for the purposes of general social interaction; whether you would need post-Singularity tech to make a biological male indistinguishable from a cis woman had little bearing on what we should make of trans women. That was interesting. April's profile said she was 19 years old and transfeminine. April saying that the essay wasn't making claims relevant to trans people; but _I_ thought it was relevant in 2008. (My dream of a fiction of animosity between a Yudkowsky-like and Lynn Conway-like character.)
+ * someone said "the word in their language doesn't match the word in yours"; and got a +1 emoji from Big Yud; I resisted the temptation to say "So ... I can define a word any way I want"; I call a killthread.
]
-The 2004 mailing list post was almost _mocking_ the guy, for being so naïve, for not seeing the type mismatch between the deep structure of reality, and mentalistic fantasies vaguely gestured at with English words.
-
-And the 2016–2021 posts _couldn't even acknolwedge that Biological Sex Actually Exists_. Did Yudkowsky expect us not to _notice_?? Coming from anyone else in the world, I wouldn't have minded. But the _conjunction_ of these political games and the eliezera racial supremacy rhetoric was just _insulting_.
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-April said she didn't think the "Changing Emotions" argument was making claims relevant to trans people. The only claim you really needed was that it was reasonable for cis men and trans men, and cis women and trans women, to be in the same category for the purposes of general social interaction; whether you would need post-Singularity tech to make a biological male indistinguishable from a cis woman had little bearing on what we should make of trans women.
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-That was interesting. April's profile said she was 19 years old and transfeminine.
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-[TODO: April saying that the essay wasn't making claims relevant to trans people; but _I_ thought it was relevant in 2008]
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-[TODO: bridge ...]
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-[TODO: someone said "the word in their language doesn't match the word in yours"; and got a +1 emoji; I resisted the temptation to say "So ... I can define a word any way I want"; I call a killthread.]
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projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / commitdiff