some anchors for memoir pt. 1–2

[Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git] / content / 2023 / a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md

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@@ -286,7 +286,7 @@ My hope was that it was possible to apply just enough "What kind of rationalist
 
 After some more discussion within the me/Michael/Ben/Sarah posse, on 4 January 2019, I wrote to Yudkowsky again (a second time), to explain the specific problems with his "hill of meaning in defense of validity" Twitter performance, since that apparently hadn't been obvious from the earlier link to ["... To Make Predictions"](/2018/Feb/the-categories-were-made-for-man-to-make-predictions/). I cc'ed the posse, who chimed in afterwards.
 
-Ben explained what kind of actions we were hoping for from Yudkowsky: that he would (1) notice that he'd accidentally been participating in an epistemic war, (2) generalize the insight (if he hadn't noticed, what were the odds that MIRI had adequate defenses?), and (3) join the conversation about how to _actually_ have a rationality community, while noticing this particular way in which the problem seemed harder than it used to. For my case in particular, something that would help would be either (A) a clear _ex cathedra_ statement that gender categories are not an exception to the general rule that categories are nonarbitrary, _or_ (B) a clear _ex cathedra_ statement that he's been silenced on this matter. If even (B) was too politically expensive, that seemed like important evidence about (1).
+<a id="ex-cathedra-statement-ask"></a>Ben explained what kind of actions we were hoping for from Yudkowsky: that he would (1) notice that he'd accidentally been participating in an epistemic war, (2) generalize the insight (if he hadn't noticed, what were the odds that MIRI had adequate defenses?), and (3) join the conversation about how to _actually_ have a rationality community, while noticing this particular way in which the problem seemed harder than it used to. For my case in particular, something that would help would be either (A) a clear _ex cathedra_ statement that gender categories are not an exception to the general rule that categories are nonarbitrary, _or_ (B) a clear _ex cathedra_ statement that he's been silenced on this matter. If even (B) was too politically expensive, that seemed like important evidence about (1).
 
 Without revealing the other side of any private conversation that may or may not have occurred, I can say that we did not get either of those _ex cathedra_ statements at this time.