content/2019/the-source-of-our-power.md

   1 Title: The Source of Our Power
   2 Date: 2019-07-02 05:00
   3 Tags: discourse, my robot cult, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Scott Alexander
   4 Category: other
   5
   6 "I really don't think you're rationally considering how to maximize your contribution to rationality pedagogy and deciding it runs through freaking out about transgender and maybe abandoning the movement in disgust."
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   8 "_Almost no one's_ optimal contribution to rationality pedagogy runs through freaking out about transgender; I just think it's plausible that _mine_ does. It is written that [power comes from having Something to Protect](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SGR4GxFK7KmW7ckCB/something-to-protect): the [Sequences](https://www.readthesequences.com/) were distilled out of Eliezer Yudkowsky's attempt to think carefully about how to build a superintelligence; the classic _Slate Star Codex_ posts on [argumentative charity](http://web.archive.org/web/20200110071406/https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/02/12/youre-probably-wondering-why-ive-called-you-here-today/) were born out of Scott Alexander's [trauma after accidentally running afoul](http://web.archive.org/web/20200612024112/https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/12/a-response-to-apophemi-on-triggers/) of social-justice activists.
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  10 "If Eliezer had _started out_ trying to write about human rationality, if Scott had _started out_ trying to write about discourse norms, _it wouldn't have worked_. The Art must have a purpose other than itself, or it collapses into infinite recursion."