I should note, Cummings does appear to be playing politics in parts of his testimony. He is scathing in his comments on some people (Matt Hancock, Health Secretary), and describes others in glowing terms (Rishi Sunak, Chancellor).
Yeah. I want to emphasize this to everyone in the Less Wrong sphere who is causally aware of Cummings. He is interested in a lot of the same kinds of things that we are, but he doesn’t hold to exactly the same epistemic mores. There are lots of videos of him on youtube in which he is obviously trying to win arguments / score points, instead of straightforwardly say what’s true.
This is probably appropriate and adaptive for his context in the world, but it does make me cringe, and if I observed my friends and coworkers engaging in moves that were that straightforwardly un-epistemic, I would be shocked and disturbed.
Yeah. I want to emphasize this to everyone in the Less Wrong sphere who is causally aware of Cummings. He is interested in a lot of the same kinds of things that we are, but he doesn’t hold to exactly the same epistemic mores. There are lots of videos of him on youtube in which he is obviously trying to win arguments / score points, instead of straightforwardly say what’s true.
This is probably appropriate and adaptive for his context in the world, but it does make me cringe, and if I observed my friends and coworkers engaging in moves that were that straightforwardly un-epistemic, I would be shocked and disturbed.