Sunday retreat 2: chessboard, Pearl

Feeling ambivalent about how much cussing to do (it's impure, but it
conveys a punch).

I paced outside in the rain a bit and peeked at Moravec, but mostly,
we've got to keep the momentum going while it's still morning!—let's
leave this scraps aside and push ahead on the main ms.

diff --git a/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md b/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md
index 49b7bf4..5c0a1d6 100644 (file)
--- a/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md
+++ b/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md
@@ -671,12 +671,13 @@ https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1501218503990431745
 
 playing on a different chessboard—I would be fine with it if he didn't shit on my chessboard. But my shitting on his chessboard
 
-I could forgive him for taking a shit on d4 of my chessboard ("at least 20% of the ones with penises are actually women"). I could even forgive him for subsequently taking a shit on e4 of my chessboard ("") as long as he wiped the shit off afterwards ([TODO linky-quotey clarification]), even though, really, I would have expected someone so smart to take a hint after the incident on d4.
+I could forgive him for taking a shit on d4 of my chessboard ("at least 20% of the ones with penises are actually women"). I could even forgive him for subsequently taking a shit on e4 of my chessboard ([TODO linky-quotey not standing in defense of truth]) as long as he wiped most of the shit off afterwards ([TODO linky-quotey clarification]), even though, really, I would have expected someone so smart to take a hint after the incident on d4. But if he's _then_ going to take a shit on c3 of my chessboard ([TODO linkey-quotey normative meaning of 'he']) ... at _that_ point, it's hard for me to consider him as neutrally playing on a different chessboard, rather than actively trying to shit on mine; the turd on c3 is a pretty big likelihood ratio in favor of the latter hypothesis.
+
 
 Ben on Discursive Warfare and Faction Formation: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dou43_aX_h1lP7-wqU_5jJq62PuhotQaybe5H2HUmWc/edit
 > What's not wrong on purpose is persuasive but does not become a factional identity. What becomes a factional identity is wrong on purpose.
 
-> Applying this to LessWrong: Plenty of people read the Sequences, improved their self-models and epistemic standards, and went on to do interesting things not particularly identified with LessWrong. Also, people formed an identity around Eliezer, the Sequences, and MIRI, which means that the community clustered around LessWrong is - aside from a few very confused people who until recently still thought it was about applying the lessons of the Sequences - committed not to Eliezer's insights but to exaggerated versions of his blind spots.
+> Applying this to LessWrong: Plenty of people read the Sequences, improved their self-models and epistemic standards, and went on to do interesting things not particularly identified with LessWrong. Also, people formed an identity around Eliezer, the Sequences, and MIRI, which means that the community clustered around LessWrong is—aside from a few very confused people who until recently still thought it was about applying the lessons of the Sequences—committed not to Eliezer's insights but to exaggerated versions of his blind spots.
 
 > The people who aren't doing that mostly aren't participating in the LessWrong identity, but while factions like that are hostile to the confused people who behave as though they're part of a community trying to become less wrong, such factions are also parasitic on such people, claiming credit for their intellectual contributions. When such participation is fully extinguished, the group begins to decay, having nothing distinctive to offer, unless it has become too big to fail, in which case it's just another component of one political faction or another.
 
@@ -786,8 +787,6 @@ https://twitter.com/satisfiesvalues/status/1524475059695505409
 flu virus that cures Borderer culture
 https://twitter.com/Kenku_Allaryi/status/1524646257976877057
 
-Zvi claims the condescension is important information, which is why it's such a betrayal when he uses the condesension to score points
-https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ax695frGJEzGxFBK4/biology-inspired-agi-timelines-the-trick-that-never-works?commentId=HB3BL3Sa6MxSszqdq
 
 Anna thinks that committees can't do anything worthwhile; for endeavors requiring a lot of coordination, it's useful for leaders to have slack to make decisions without having to justify themselves to a mob. Anna endorses Straussianism: writing for the few is different from writing for the many, and that some of Ben's stuff may have veered too far towards loading negative affect on EA leaders; I and my model of Michael have reservations about the extent to which \"writing for the few\" could also be described as \"colluding to deceive the rest of the world\
 
@@ -962,22 +961,25 @@ In dath ilan they talk about the Light—the policy vector that everyone can agr
 
 ------
 
-It's as if the guy has just completely given up on the idea that public speech is useful, or that anyone besides he and his flunkies is capable of thought.
+If you listen to the sorts of things the guy says lately, it looks like he's just completely given up on the idea that public speech could possibly be useful, or that anyone besides he and his flunkies is capable of thought. For example:
 
-> "too many people think it's unvirtuous to shut up and listen to me" I wish I had never written about LDT and just told people to vote for reasons they understand when they're older
+> "too many people think it's unvirtuous to shut up and listen to me" I wish I had never written about LDT and just told people to vote for reasons they understand when they're older [TODO full direct quote]
 https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1509944888376188929
 
-Notwithstanding that there are reasons for him to be traumatized over how some people have misinterpreted timeless decision theory—what a _profoundly_ anti-intellectual statement! This is just not something you would ever say if you cared about having a rationality community that could process arguments and correct errors, rather than a robot cult to suck you off.
-
-To be clear, there _is_ such a thing as legitimately trusting an authority who knows better than you! For example, the Sequences tell of how Yudkowsky once wrote about [TODO: linky] writing to Judea Pearl to correct an apparent error in _Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference_. Pearl agreed that there was an error, but said that Yudkowsky's proposed correction was also wrong, and provided the real correction. Yudkowsky didn't understand the real correction, but 
+Notwithstanding that there are reasons for him to be traumatized over how some people have misinterpreted timeless decision theory—what a _profoundly_ anti-intellectual statement! I calim that this is just not something you would ever say if you cared about having a rationality community that could process arguments and correct errors, rather than a robot cult to suck you off.
 
+To be clear, there _is_ such a thing as legitimately trusting an authority who knows better than you. For example, the Sequences tell of how Yudkowsky once [TODO: linky] wrote to Judea Pearl to correct an apparent error in _Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference_. Pearl agreed that there was an error, but said that Yudkowsky's proposed correction was also wrong, and provided the real correction. Yudkowsky didn't understand the real correction, but trusted that Pearl was right, because Pearl was the authority who had invented the subject matter—it didn't seem likely that he would get it wrong _again_ after the original error had been brought to his attention.
 
+[TODO But crucially, "Defer to subject-matter experts" seems like a _different_ moral than "Too many people think it's unvirtuous to shut up and listen Judea Pearl."]
 
+If Yudkowsky is frustrated that people don't defer to him enough _now_, he should remember the only reason he has _any_ people who defer to him _at all_ is _because_ he used to be such a good explainer who actually argued for things.
 
-If he's frustrated that people won't listen _now_, he should remember the only reason he has _any_ people who defer to him _at all_ is because he used to be such a good explainer who actually argued for things.
+[TODO: if he had never spoken of TDT, why _should_ they trust him about voting?!]
 
-That trust is a _finite resource_.
+[TODO That trust is a _finite resource_. Zvi Mowshowitz  claims the condescension is important information, which is why it's such a betrayal when he uses the condesension to score points
+https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ax695frGJEzGxFBK4/biology-inspired-agi-timelines-the-trick-that-never-works?commentId=HB3BL3Sa6MxSszqdq ]
 
 ------
 
-Lightwavers on Twitter (who Yudkowsky knew as ) dissed 
\ No newline at end of file
+Lightwavers on Twitter (who Yudkowsky knew from /r/rational) dissed Charles Murray on Twitter
+