slotted TODO blocks—
✓ psychiatric disaster
-_ "Agreeing With Stalin" intro recap
-_ recap of crimes, cont'd
-_ Dolphin War finish
-_ lead-in to Sept. 2021 Twitter altercation
-_ Michael Vassar and the Theory of Optimal Gossip
-_ plan to reach out to Rick / Michael on creepy men/crazy men
+✓ "Agreeing With Stalin" intro recap
+✓ recap of crimes, cont'd
+✓ Dolphin War finish
+✓ lead-in to Sept. 2021 Twitter altercation
+✓ out of patience email
+✓ Michael Vassar and the Theory of Optimal Gossip
+✓ complicity and friendship
+✓ plan to reach out to "Ethan"
+✓ Michael on creepy men/crazy men
+✓ repair pt. 5 dath ilan transition
_ reaction to Ziz
-_ State of Steven
-_ complicity and friendship
-_ out of patience email
- Eliezerfic fight conclusion
blocks to fit somewhere—
_ Tail vs. Bailey / Davis vs. Yudkowsky analogy (new block somewhere)
_ mention that "Not Man for the Categories" keeps getting cited
-Notes from pt. 3 readthrough—
+pt. 3 edit tier—
_ fullname Taylor and Hoffman at start of pt. 3
_ footnote clarifying that "Riley" and Sarah weren't core members of the group, despite being included on some emails?
_ be more specific about Ben's anti-EA and Jessica's anti-MIRI things, perhaps in footnotes
_ Ben on "locally coherent coordination": use direct quotes for Ben's language—maybe rewrite in my own language (footnote?) as an understanding test
_ set context for "EA Has a Lying Problem" (written by Sarah, likely with Michael's influence—maybe ask Sarah)
_ clarify schism (me and Vassar bros leaving the EA/rat borg?)
-_ set context for Anna on first mention in the postq
+_ set context for Anna on first mention in the post
_ more specific on "mostly pretty horrifying" and group conversation with the whole house
_ paragraph to explain the cheerful price bit
_ cut words from the "Yes Requires" slapfight?
_ cut many words from "Social Reality" scuffle
_ is "long May 2020" link still good?
_ better context on "scam" &c. earlier
+_ meeting with Ray
_ Ben's "financial fraud don't inquire as to the conscious motives of the perp" claim may be false
_ later thoughts on jump to evaluation, translating between different groups' language
_ mention that I was miffed about "Boundaries?" not getting Curated, while one of Euk's animal posts did
_ try to clarify Abram's categories view (Michael didn't get it)
_ cut lots of words from December 2019 blogging spree
_ in a footnote, defend the "cutting my dick off" rhetorical flourish
+_ choice quotes in "end of the Category War" thank you note
+_ do I have a better identifier than "Vassarite"?
+_ maybe I do want to fill in a few more details about the Sasha disaster, conditional on what I end up writing regarding Scott's prosecution?—and conditional on my separate retro email—also the Zolpidem thing
+_ mention "Darkest Timeline" and Skyrms somewhere
+_ footnote explaining quibbles? (the first time I tried to write this, I hesitated, not sure if necessary)
+_ "it was the same thing here"—most readers are not going to understand what I see as the obvious analogy
+_ first mention of Jack G. should introduce him properly
-Notes from pt. 4 readthrough—
+pt. 4 edit tier—
_ mention Nick Bostrom email scandal (and his not appearing on the one-sentence CAIS statement)
_ revise and cut words from "bad faith" section since can link to "Assume Bad Faith"
_ cut words from January 2020 Twitter exchange (after war criminal defenses)
+_ everyone *who matters* prefers to stay on the good side
+
+pt. 5 edit tier—
+_ quote specific exchange where I mentioned 10,000 words of philosophy that Scott was wrong—obviously the wrong play
+_ "as Soares pointed out" needs link
+_ can I rewrite to not bury the lede on "intent doesn't matter"?
+_ also reference "No such thing as a tree" in Dolphin War section
+_ better brief explanation of dark side epistemology
+_ "deep causal structure" argument needs to be crystal clear, not sloopy
+_ it's a relevant detail whether the optimization is coming from Nate
+_ probably cut the vaccine polarization paragraphs? (overheard at a party is not great sourcing, even if technically admissible)
+_ elaborate on how 2007!Yudkowsky and 2021!Xu are saying the opposite things if you just take a plain-language reading and consider, not whether individual sentences can be interpreted as "true", but what kind of _optimization_ the text is doing to the behavior of receptive readers
+_ Scott got comas right in the same year as "Categories"
_ revise reply to Xu
+_ cite Earthling/postrat sneers
+_ cite postYud Tweet
+_ when EY put a checkmark on my Discord message characterizing his strategy as giving up on intellectual honesty
_ cut lots of words from Scotts comments on Jessica's MIRI post (keep: "attempting to erase the agency", Scott blaming my troubles on Michael being absurd)
-_ do I have a better identifier than "Vassarite"?
-_ maybe I do want to fill in a few more details about the Sasha disaster, conditional on what I end up writing regarding Scott's prosecution?—and conditional on my separate retro email—also the Zolpidem thing
+_ sucking Scott's dick is helpful because he's now the main gateway instead of HPMOR
+_ Sarah's point that Scott gets a lot of undeserved deference, too: https://twitter.com/s_r_constantin/status/1435609950303162370
+_ clarify that Keltham infers there are no mascochists, vs. Word of God
+_ "Doublethink" ref in Xu discussion should mention that Word of God Eliezerfic clarification that it's not about telling others
+_ https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/vvc2MiZvWgMFaSbhx/book-review-the-bell-curve-by-charles-murray/comment/git7xaE2aHfSZyLzL
+
+pt. 6 edit tier—
+
+dath ilan ancillary tier—
+_ Who are the 9 most important legislators called?
+_ collect Earth people sneers
+_ what kind of person wants to delete history? History would tell you
+_ psyops don't require people taking them seriously, only that they make people think the govenment is doing psyops
+_ the reason "truth is better than lies; knowledge is better than ignorance" is general; can assert by authorial fiat whatever details are needed to make it all turn out for the greater good, but _that's not how anything works in real life_.
+_ "telling people things would be meddling" moral needs work; obvious objection is that different rules apply to Keepers
+_ "obligate" is only Word of God, right?—I should probably cite this
+
+
+things to discuss with Michael/Ben/Jessica—
+_ Anna on Paul Graham
+_ compression of Yudkowsky thinking reasoning wasn't useful
+_ Michael's SLAPP against REACH
+_ Michael on creepy and crazy men
------
With internet available—
+_ Earthing/postrat sneers
_ Is http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/01/be-a-charity-angel.html the best link for after-the-fact prize funding?
_ P(doom)
_ Michael on OB in 'aught-eight on smart kids internalizing rules meant for the norm of reaction of a dumber population
_ Yudkowsky's LW moderation policy
far editing tier—
+_ screenshot key Tweet threads (now that Twitter requires you to log in)
_ Caliphate / craft and the community
_ colony ship happiness lie in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AWaJvBMb9HGBwtNqd/qualitative-strategies-of-friendliness
_ re being fair to abusers: thinking about what behavior pattern you would like to see, generally, by people in your situation, instead of privileging the perspective and feelings of people who've made themselves vulnerable to you by transgressing against you
_ Alyssa lying about me [pt. 4]
_ Brian Skyrms??
_ mr-hire and pre-emptive steelmanning (before meeting LW mods)
-_ meeting with Ray
_ is the Glowfic author "Lintamande ... they" or "Lintamande ... she"?
_ explain plot of _Planecrash_ better
_ CfAR's AI pivot??
_ Iceman
_ Scott
_ hostile prereader (April—if not, J. Beshir, Swimmer, someone else from Alicorner #drama)
-_ Kelsey
+_ Kelsey (what was that 1 year statute of limitations about??)
_ NRx Twitter bro
_ maybe SK (briefly about his name)? (the memoir might have the opposite problem (too long) from my hostile-shorthand Twitter snipes)
_ Megan (that poem could easily be about some other entomologist named Megan) ... I'm probably going to cut that §, though
_ David Xu? (Is it OK to name him in his LW account?)
_ afford various medical procedures
_ Buck? (get the story about Michael being escorted from events)
-_ A/a alumna??
_ Ray
_ Ruby
-_ Kay Brown?? (assuming I include the delusional emails to her)
+_ Teortaxes??
marketing—
_ Twitter
Friend of the blog Ninety-Three has been nagging me about my pathetic pacing—looking at the diffs of my wordcount spreadsheet, I have four thousand-word days in January, two in February, and two in March (which is half-over). He ... has a point. With no dayjob and no responsibilities, four-figure wordcount days should be normal, something that happens four times a week, not four times a month.
--------
-
-It might actually make sense for this to get split into eight parts??—I'm going to finish the five-part draft first before doing any more splitting. But—
-
-Here's where we stand now—
-
-24K Blanchard's Dangerous Idea and the Plight of the Lucid Crossdreamer
-23K A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning
-21K If Clarity Seems Like Death to Them
-16K Agreeing With Stalin in Ways That Exhibit Generally Rationalist Principles
-31K Standing Under the Same Sky
------
-115K
-
-What if that became something more like—
-19K Blanchard's Dangerous Idea and the Plight of the Lucid Crossdreamer
-10K My Recent Madness (working title)
-23K A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning
-30K If Clarity Seems Like Death to Them
-16K Agreeing With Stalin in Ways That Exhibit Generally Rationalist Principles
-18K Dignity (working title)
-20K Standing Under the Same Sky
- 3K Epilogue (working title)
------
-139K
-
-If I did this, I would need three more good (non-working) titles and epigraph quotes. For epigraphs, I'm thinking—
-My Recent Madness—Zoolander "crazy pills" quote
-Dignity—it has all been said before, but you must say it again
-Epilogue—the truth is great and shall prevail
-
-... I don't think I want to go to eight parts, though—that's way too self-indulgent! (I think I can go to six, because the dath ilan discussion actually is long and separable; I probably don't need a separate epilogue-post.) If one of my existing parts runs over 30K words, that's strong evidence that it can be cut.
-
-30K Blanchard's Dangerous Idea and the Plight of the Lucid Crossdreamer
-23K A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning
-30K If Clarity Seems Like Death to Them
-16K Agreeing With Stalin in Ways That Exhibit Generally Rationalist Principles
-20K Dignity (working title)
-20K Standing Under the Same Sky
----
-139K
-
-—which implies that I'm 25 double-digit writing days away, such that finishing a gapless ms. in April is at least thinkable ... but only if I stop daydreaming and get to work.
-
-17K Blanchard's Dangerous Idea and the Plight of the Lucid Crossdreamer
-13K People, Evolved Social-Control Mechanisms, and Rocks
-23K A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning
-30K If Clarity Seems Like Death to Them
-16K Agreeing With Stalin in Ways That Exhibit Generally Rationalist Principles
-20K Zevi's Choice
-20K Standing Under the Same Sky
----
-139K
-
-
-------
The thing about our crowd is that we have a lamentably low proportion of women (13.3% cis women in the last community survey) and—I don't know when this happened; it certainly didn't feel like this back in 'aught-nine—an enormous number of trans women relative to population base rates (2.7%, for a cis-to-trans ratio of 4.9!!), the vast majority of whom I expect to be AGP
* Arguing with him resulted in my backing away from pure BBL ("Useful Approximation")
* Later, he became disillusioned with "Blanchardians" and went to war against them. I kept telling him he _is_ a "Blanchardian", insofar as he largely agrees with the main findings (about AGP as a major cause). He corresponded with Bailey and became frustrated with Bailey's ridigity. Blanchardians market themselves as disinterest truthseekers, but a lot of what they're actually doing is providing a counternarrative to social justice.
* There's an analogy between Tail's antipathy for Bailey and my antipathy for Yudkowsky: I still largely agree with "the rationalists", but the way especially Yudkowsky markets himself as a uniquely sane thinker
+
+Something he said made me feel spooked that he knew something about risks of future suffering that he wouldn't talk about, but in retrospect, I don't think that's what he meant.
+
+https://twitter.com/zackmdavis/status/1435856644076830721
+> The error in "Not Man for the Categories" is not subtle! After the issue had been brought to your attention, I think you should have been able to condemn it: "Scott's wrong; you can't redefine concepts in order to make people happy; that's retarded." It really is that simple! 4/6
+
+> It can also be naive to assume that all the damage that people consistently do is unintentional. For that matter, Sam by being "lol you mad" rather than "sorry" is continuing to do that damage. I'd have bought "sorry" rather a lot better, in terms of no ulterior motives.
+https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1706861603029909508
+
+-------
+
+On 27 September 2023, Yudkowsky told Quentin Pope, "If I was given to your sort of attackiness, I'd now compose a giant LW post about how this blatant error demonstrates that nobody should trust you about anything else either." (https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1707142828995031415) I felt like it was an OK use of bandwidth to point out that tracking reputations is sometimes useful (https://twitter.com/zackmdavis/status/1707183146335367243). My agenda here is the same as when I wrote "... on Epistemic Conduct for Author Criticism": I don't want Big Yud using his social power to delegitimize "attacks" in general, because I have an interest in attacking him. Later, he quote-Tweeted something and said,
+
+> People need to grow up reading a lot of case studies like this in order to pick of a well-calibrated instinctive sense of what ignorant criticism typically sounds like. A derisory tone is a very strong base cue, though not an invincible one.
+
+Was he subtweeting me?? (Because I was defending criticism against tone policing, and this is saying tone is a valid cue.) If it was a subtweet, I take that as vindication that my reply was a good use of bandwidth.
+
+-----
+
+In particular, I think the conspiracy theory "Yudkowsky sometimes avoids nuanced arguments that he doesn't trust people to understand" is true, because ... you've said so (e.g., "without getting into any weirdness that I don't expect Earthlings to think about validly"). https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/2NncxDQ3KBDCxiJiP/cosmopolitan-values-don-t-come-free/comment/dMHdWcxgSpcdyG4hb
+
+----
+
+(He responded to me in this interaction, which is interesting.)
+
+https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1708587781424046242
+> Zack, you missed this point presumably because you're losing your grasp of basic theory in favor of conspiracy theory.
+
+https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qbcuk8WwFnTZcXTd6/thomas-kwa-s-miri-research-experience
+> The model was something like: Nate and Eliezer have a mindset that's good for both capabilities and alignment, and so if we talk to other alignment researchers about our work, the mindset will diffuse into the alignment community, and thence to OpenAI, where it would speed up capabilities.
+
+27 January 2020—
+> I'm also afraid of the failure mode where I get frame-controlled by the Michael/Ben/Jessica mini-egregore (while we tell ourselves a story that we're the real rationalist coordination group and not an egregore at all). Michael says that the worldview he's articulating would be the one that would be obvious to me if I felt that I was in danger. Insofar as I trust that my friends' mini-egregore is seeing something but I don't trust the details, the obvious path forward is to try to do original seeing while leaning into fear—trusting Michael's meta level advice, but not his detailed story.
+
+Weird tribalist praise for Scott: https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/GMCs73dCPTL8dWYGq/use-normal-predictions/comment/ez8xrquaXmmvbsYPi
+
+
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff