>
> —_Atlas Shrugged_ by Ayn Rand
-[TODO: recap of previous two posts]
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-[TODO: psychiatric disaster, breakup with Vassar group, this was really bad for me]
+[TODO: recap of previous three posts]
On 13 February 2021, ["Silicon Valley's Safe Space"](https://archive.ph/zW6oX), the _New York Times_ piece on _Slate Star Codex_ came out. It was ... pretty lame? (_Just_ lame, not a masterfully vicious hit piece.) Cade Metz did a mediocre job of explaining what our robot cult is about, while [pushing hard on the subtext](https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=5310) to make us look racist and sexist, occasionally resorting to odd constructions that were surprising to read from someone who had been a professional writer for decades. ("It was nominally a blog", Metz wrote of _Slate Star Codex_. ["Nominally"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nominally)?) The article's claim that Alexander "wrote in a wordy, often roundabout way that left many wondering what he really believed" seemed to me more like a critique of the "many"'s reading comprehension, rather than Alexander's writing.
> People might be able to speak that. A clearer example of a forbidden counterargument would be something like e.g. imagine if there was a pair of experimental studies somehow proving that (a) everybody claiming to experience gender dysphoria was lying, and that (b) they then got more favorable treatment from the rest of society. We wouldn't be able to talk about that. No such study exists to the best of my own knowledge, and in this case we might well hear about it from the other side to whom this is the exact opposite of unspeakable; but that would be an example.
-(As an aside, the wording of "we might well hear about it from _the other side_" (emphasis mine) is _very_ interesting, suggesting that the so-called "rationalist" community is, in fact, a partisan institution.)
+(As an aside, the wording of "we might well hear about it from _the other side_" (emphasis mine) is _very_ interesting, suggesting that the so-called "rationalist" community is, in fact, a partisan institution. An intellectual community dedicated to refining the art of human rationality would not have an _other side_.)
I think (a) and (b) _as stated_ are clearly false, so "we" (who?) fortunately aren't losing much by allegedly not being able to speak them. But what about some _similar_ hypotheses, that might be similarly unspeakable for similar reasons?
But my complaint is about the work the algorithm is _doing_ in Stalin's service, not about how it _feels_; I'm talking about a pattern of _publicly visible behavior_ stretching over years. (Thus, "take actions" in favor of/against, rather than "be"; "exert optimization pressure in the direction of", rather than "try".) I agree that everyone has a story in which they don't look terrible, and that people mostly believe their own stories, but _it does not therefore follow_ that no one ever does anything terrible.
-I agree that you won't have much luck yelling at the Other about how they must really be doing `terrible_thing`. (People get very invested in their own stories.) But if you have the _receipts_ of the Other repeatedly doing `terrible_thing` in public over a period of years from 2016 to 2021, maybe yelling about it to _everyone else_ might help _them_ stop getting suckered by the Other's fraudulent story.
+I agree that you won't have much luck yelling at the Other about how they must really be doing `terrible_thing`. (People get very invested in their own stories.) But if you have the _receipts_ of the Other repeatedly doing `terrible_thing` in public from 2016 to 2021, maybe yelling about it to _everyone else_ might help _them_ stop getting suckered by the Other's fraudulent story.
Let's recap.
If you don't want to say those things because hurting people is wrong, then you have chosen Feelings.
-Scott Alexander chose Feelings, but I can't really hold that against him, because Scott is [very explicit about only acting in the capacity of some guy with a blog](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/04/some-clarifications-on-rationalist-blogging/). You can tell from his writings that he never wanted to be a religious leader; it just happened to him on accident because he writes faster than everyone else. I like Scott. Scott is great. I feel sad that such a large fraction of my interactions with him over the years have taken such an adversarial tone.
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-Eliezer Yudkowsky ... did not _unambiguously_ choose Feelings. He's been very careful with his words to strategically mood-affiliate with the side of Feelings, without consciously saying anything that he knows to be unambiguously false. The vast majority of the time, when some guy with a blog adopts this kind of political strategy, it's hard to muster up the enthusiasm to hold it against him; it's not worth anyone's effort to write an 80,000-word series of callout posts exposing the dishonesty.
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-But Eliezer Yudkowsky does not "present as" just some guy with a blog. Eliezer Yudkowsky is _absolutely_ trying to be a religious leader, one who ["aspires to make sure [his] departures from perfection aren't noticeable to others"](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1384671335146692608).
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+Scott Alexander chose Feelings, but I can't really hold that against him, because Scott is [very explicit about only speaking in the capacity of some guy with a blog](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/04/some-clarifications-on-rationalist-blogging/). You can tell from his writings that he never wanted to be a religious leader; it just happened to him on accident because he writes faster than everyone else. I like Scott. Scott is great. I feel sad that such a large fraction of my interactions with him over the years have taken such an adversarial tone.
+Eliezer Yudkowsky ... did not _unambiguously_ choose Feelings. He's been very careful with his words to strategically mood-affiliate with the side of Feelings, without consciously saying anything that he knows to be unambiguously false.
+But Eliezer Yudkowsky does not identify as just some guy with a blog. Eliezer Yudkowsky is _absolutely_ trying to be a religious leader. He markets himself as a master of the hidden Bayesian structure of cognition, who ["aspires to make sure [his] departures from perfection aren't noticeable to others"](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1384671335146692608).
-Back in 'aught-nine,
+In making such boasts, I think Yudkowsky is opting in to being held to higher standards than other mortals. If Scott Alexander gets something wrong when I was trusting him to be right, that's disappointing, but I'm not the victim of false advertising, because Scott Alexander doesn't _claim_ to be anything more than some guy with a blog. If I trusted him more than that, that's on me.
+If Eliezer Yudkowsky gets something wrong when I was trusting him to be right, _and_ refuses to acknowledge corrections _and_ keeps inventing new galaxy-brained ways to be wrong in the service of his political agenda of being seen to agree with Stalin without technically lying, then I think I _am_ the victim of false advertising. His marketing bluster was optimized to trick people like me, even if it's my fault for being _dumb enough to believe him_.
-* papal infallability / Eliezer Yudkowsky facts
-https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ndtb22KYBxpBsagpj/eliezer-yudkowsky-facts?commentId=Aq9eWJmK6Liivn8ND
-Never go in against Eliezer Yudkowsky when anything is on the line.
+Because, I did, actually, trust him. Back in 'aught-nine when _Less Wrong_ was new, we had a thread of hyperbolic ["Eliezer Yudkowsky Facts"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ndtb22KYBxpBsagpj/eliezer-yudkowsky-facts) (in the style of [Chuck Norris facts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris_facts)). And of course, it was a joke, but the hero-worship that make the joke funny was real. (You wouldn't make those jokes for your community college physics teacher, even if he was a decent teacher.)
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris_facts
+["Never go in against Eliezer Yudkowsky when anything is on the line."](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ndtb22KYBxpBsagpj/eliezer-yudkowsky-facts?commentId=Aq9eWJmK6Liivn8ND), said one of the facts—and back then, I didn't think I would _need_ to.
+[Yudkowsky writes](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1096769579362115584):
-https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1096769579362115584
> When an epistemic hero seems to believe something crazy, you are often better off questioning "seems to believe" before questioning "crazy", and both should be questioned before shaking your head sadly about the mortal frailty of your heroes.
- * If Eliezer Yudkowsky can't _unambigously_ choose Truth over Feelings, _then Eliezer Yudkowsky is a fraud_.
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-]
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+I notice that this advice leaves out a possibility: that the "seems to believe" is a deliberate show, rather than a misperception on your part. I am left in a [weighted average of](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/y4bkJTtG3s5d6v36k/stupidity-and-dishonesty-explain-each-other-away) shaking my head sadly about the mortal frailty of my former hero, and shaking my head in disgust at his craven duplicity. If Eliezer Yudkowsky can't _unambigously_ choose Truth over Feelings, _then Eliezer Yudkowsky is a fraud_.
+-------
[TODO section existential stakes, cooperation
* so far, I've been writing this from the perspective of caring about _rationality_ and wanting there to be a rationality movement, the common interest of many causes
* you could tell a story in which I'm the villain for undermining Team Singularity with my petty temporal concerns
]
+/2020/Aug/memento-mori/#if-we-even-have-enough-time
+
> [_Perhaps_, replied the cold logic](https://www.yudkowsky.net/other/fiction/the-sword-of-good). _If the world were at stake._
>
> _Perhaps_, echoed the other part of himself, _but that is not what was actually happening._
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