From cf7b2f7670af28e5af4c488d49c5eb37b2344546 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Zack M. Davis" Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2023 22:08:04 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] memoir: "something in me boiled over" --- .../if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md | 25 ++++--------------- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md b/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md index d615b7a..a956dde 100644 --- a/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md +++ b/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md @@ -660,31 +660,15 @@ I put the question to a few friends in July 2020 (Subject: "rubber duck philosop ------ -[TODO: - * Yudkowsky made a stray remark about social media causing people to say crazy thing - * I got enraged, posted a couple Tweets, including a preview of "Unnatural Categories" +I decided on "Unnatural Categories Are Optimized for Deception" as the title for my advanced categorization thesis. Writing it up was a large undertaking. There were a lot of nuances to address and potential objections to preëmpt, and I felt that I had to cover everything. (A reasonable person who wanted to understand the main ideas wouldn't need so much detail, but I wasn't up against reasonable people who wanted to understand.) -https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1304824253015945216 -> Hypothesis: social media has an effect promoting Terrible Straw Arguments to being used by many actual people. One crazy on Side A makes a bad argument. Side B subtweets with a refutation and that gets a million views. So people on Side A hear about it as Side A's argument. -> -> And the result looks so incredibly surreal. People be going "2 + 3 = 4" and the replies are things like "lol but 4 is a prime number you moron". The entire conversation has been implicitly selected to sound insane to the other side. +In September 2020, Yudkowsky Tweeted [something about social media incentives prompting people to make insane arguments](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1304824253015945216). +Something in me boiled over. The Tweet was fine in isolation, but I rankled at it in the context of his own incentive-driven insanity remaining unaddressed. I left [a snarky reply](https://twitter.com/zackmdavis/status/1304838486810193921) and [vented on my timeline](https://twitter.com/zackmdavis/status/1304838346695348224) (with preview images from the draft of "Unnatural Categories Are Optimized for Deception"): > Who would have thought getting @ESYudkowsky's robot cult to stop trying to trick me into cutting my dick off (independently of the empirical facts determining whether or not I should cut my dick off) would involve so much math?? OK, I guess the math part isn't surprising, but— -https://twitter.com/zackmdavis/status/1304838346695348224 - - -https://twitter.com/zackmdavis/status/1304838486810193921 -> Or, "You're not standing in defense of truth if you insist on a symbol like '2' or '+', brought explicitly into question, being used with some particular meaning." (I'm still very angry at you! This shouldn't be hard to clear up in public!) 1/2 -> -> If not the object-level application on Twitter, at least the abstract philosophy-of-language issue on Less Wrong?! Please!?! I've been working on a more detailed explanation that should be ready within a few weeks. 2/2 - * something in my boiled over, and I eventually ended up staying up late writing an angry email - * this ruins my chances for being a "neutral" bridge between the Vassarites and the Caliphate, but that's OK - * mostly reproduce below (with a few redactions for either brevity or compliance with privacy norms, but I'm not going to clarify which) -] - -[TODO: "out of patience" email] +My rage-boil continued into staying up late writing him an angry email, which I mostly reproduce below (with a few redactions for either brevity or compliance with privacy norms, but I'm not going to clarify which). > To: Eliezer Yudkowsky <[redacted]> > Cc: Anna Salamon <[redacted]> @@ -797,6 +781,7 @@ I followed it up with another email after I woke up the next morning: [TODO: Sep 2020 categories clarification from EY—victory?! https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10158853851009228 _ex cathedra_ statement that gender categories are not an exception to the rule, only 1 year and 8 months after asking for it + * this ruins my chances for being a "neutral" bridge between the Vassarites and the Caliphate, but that's OK ] ----- -- 2.17.1