starting to get unblocked on grief blogging?

I managed to write a little bit yesterday, despite mostly wallowing in
distraction

diff --git a/content/drafts/i-tell-myself-to-let-the-story-end-or-a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md b/content/drafts/i-tell-myself-to-let-the-story-end-or-a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md
index 306879b..baccbc7 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/i-tell-myself-to-let-the-story-end-or-a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md
+++ b/content/drafts/i-tell-myself-to-let-the-story-end-or-a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md
@@ -18,15 +18,30 @@ I haven't been doing so well for a lot of the past ten months or so. I mean, I'v
 
 But this blog is not about _not_ attacking my friends. This blog is about the truth. For my own sanity, for my own emotional closure, I need to tell the story as best I can. If it's an _incredibly boring and petty_ story about me getting _unreasonably angry_ about philosophy-of-language minutiæ, well, you've been warned. If the story makes me look bad in the reader's eyes (because you think I'm crazy for getting so unreasonably angry about philosophy-of-language minutiæ), then I shall be happy to look bad for _what I actually am_. (If _telling the truth_ about what I've been obsessively preoccupied with all year makes you dislike me, then you probably _should_ dislike me. If you were to approve of me on the basis of _factually inaccurate beliefs_, then the thing of which you approve, wouldn't be _me_.)
 
-So, I've spent basically my entire adult life in this insular little intellectual subculture that was founded in the late 'aughts on an ideal of _systematically correct reasoning_. Starting with the shared canon of knowledge of cognitive biases, reflectivity, and Bayesian probability theory bequeathed to us by our founder, _we_ were going to make serious [collective](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XqmjdBKa4ZaXJtNmf/raising-the-sanity-waterline) [intellectual progress](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Nu3wa6npK4Ry66vFp/a-sense-that-more-is-possible) in a way that had [never been done before](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/07/yes-we-have-noticed-the-skulls/)—and not just out of a duty or passion for some philosophical ideal of Truth, but as a result of _understanding how intelligence works_—the reduction of "thought" to _cognitive algorithms_. Intelligent systems that construct predictive models of the world around them—that have "true" "beliefs"—can _use_ those models to compute which actions will best achieve their goals.
+So, I've spent basically my entire adult life in this insular little intellectual subculture that was founded in the late 'aughts on an ideal of _systematically correct reasoning_. Starting with the shared canon of knowledge of cognitive biases, reflectivity, and Bayesian probability theory bequeathed to us by our founder, _we_ were going to make serious [collective](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XqmjdBKa4ZaXJtNmf/raising-the-sanity-waterline) [intellectual progress](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Nu3wa6npK4Ry66vFp/a-sense-that-more-is-possible) in a way that had [never been done before](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/07/yes-we-have-noticed-the-skulls/)—and not just out of a duty towards some philosophical ideal of Truth, but as a result of _understanding how intelligence works_—the reduction of "thought" to _cognitive algorithms_. Intelligent systems that construct predictive models of the world around them—that have "true" "beliefs"—can _use_ those models to compute which actions will best achieve their goals.
 
-(Oh, and there was also this part about how [the entire future of humanity and the universe depended on](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GNnHHmm8EzePmKzPk/value-is-fragile) our figuring out how to reflect human values in a recursively self-improving artificial superintelligence. That part's complicated.)
+(Oh, and there was also [this part about](https://intelligence.org/files/AIPosNegFactor.pdf) how [the entire future of humanity and the universe depended on](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GNnHHmm8EzePmKzPk/value-is-fragile) our figuring out how to reflect human values in a recursively self-improving artificial superintelligence. That part's complicated.)
+
+I guess I feel pretty naïve now, but—I _actually believed our own propoganda_ that we were a systematically-correct-reasoning community. I _actually thought_ we were doing something new and special of historical and possibly even _cosmological_ significance.
+
+This does not seem remotely credible to me any more. I should explain—_not_ because I expect anyone to actually read this incredibly boring and petty Diary entry, much less change their mind about anything because of it. I should explain for my own mental health. For closure. The sooner I manage to get the Whole Dumb Story _written down_, the sooner I can stop grieving and _move on with my life_. (However many decades that turns out to be. The part about superintelligence eventually destroying the world still seems right; it's just the part about there existing a systematically-correct-reasoning community that seems fraudulent now.)
+
+I fear the explanation requires some personal backstory about me and my special interests. I ... almost don't want to tell the backstory, because the thing I've been upset about all year is that I thought a systematically-correct-reasoning community should be able to correct a _trivial_ philosophy-of-language mistake that has nothing to do with me, and it was pretty frustrating when people 
+
+[...]
+
+Ever since I was thirteen years old—
+
+(and I _really_ didn't expect to be blogging about this eighteen years later)
+
+(I _still_ don't want to be blogging about this, but somebody has to and no one else will)
+
+my _favorite_ masturbation fantasy has always been some variation
 
-I guess I feel pretty naïve now, but—I _actually believed our own propoganda_. I _actually thought_ we were doing something new and special of historical and possibly even _cosmological_ significance.
 
 [...]
 
-(I'm avoiding naming anyone in this post even when linking to their public writings, in order to try to keep the _rhetorical emphasis_ on "true tale of personal heartbreak, coupled with sober analysis of the sociopolitical factors leading thereto" even while I'm ... ah, expressing disappointment with people's performance. This isn't supposed to be character/reputation attack on my friends and intellectual heroes—I just _need to tell the story_ about why I've been crazy all year—crazier than usual—so that I can stop grieving and _move on_ with my life.)
+(I'm avoiding naming anyone in this post even when linking to their public writings, in order to try to keep the _rhetorical emphasis_ on "true tale of personal heartbreak, coupled with sober analysis of the sociopolitical factors leading thereto" even while I'm ... ah, expressing disappointment with people's performance. This isn't supposed to be character/reputation attack on my friends and intellectual heroes—I just _need to tell the story_ about why I've been crazy all year so that I can stop grieving and _move on_.)
 
 [...]
 

diff --git a/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt b/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt
index a3ceb64..5b0fe12 100644 (file)
--- a/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt
+++ b/notes/i-tell-myself-notes.txt
@@ -335,3 +335,6 @@ speculating that people are lying for political cover may be "uncharitable", but
 
 https://rationalconspiracy.com/2017/01/03/four-layers-of-intellectual-conversation/
 
+whether it's too late for the pebbles to vote https://status451.com/2016/08/10/too-late-for-the-pebbles-to-vote-part-2/
+
+A world that makes sense. A world that's not lying to me.

diff --git a/notes/post_ideas.txt b/notes/post_ideas.txt
index f841d8a..76aec3b 100644 (file)
--- a/notes/post_ideas.txt
+++ b/notes/post_ideas.txt
@@ -5,7 +5,9 @@ On the Argumentative Form "Super-proton Things Tend to Come in Varieties"
 
 -----
 
-Anne Lawrence on Unapologetic Autogynephilic Transsexualism
+Anne Lawrence on AGP Teen Transition
+
+Unapologetic Autogynephilic Transsexualism
 
 Promises I Can Keep