You are one of the most prolific posters on Less Wrong. You have over 6000 karma, which means that for anyone who has some portion of their identity wrapped up in the quality of the community, you serve as at least a partial marker of how well that community is doing.
Ahh. That does make sense. I fundamentally disagree with everything else of significance in your judgement here but from your premises I can see how dissapointment is consistent.
I will not respond to those judgments except in as much as to say that I don’t agree with you on any of the significant points. My responses here are considered, necessary and if anything erred on the side of restraint. Bullshit, in the technical sense is the enemy here. This post and particularly the techniques used to defend it are bullshit in that sense. That it somehow got voted above −5 is troubling to me.
I agree that the arguments made in the original post tend to brush relevant details under the rug. But there is a difference between saying that an argument is flawed and trying to help fix it, and saying that it is irrelevant and the person is making a pure appeal to their own authority.
I was interested to see a more technical discussion of what sorts of things might be from the same reference class as recursive self-improvement. I was happy to see a viewpoint being represented on Less Wrong that was more diverse than the standard “party line.” Even if the argument is flawed I was glad to see it.
I would have been much happier to see the argument deconstructed than I am now having seen it turned into a flame war.
Build a flipping AGI of approximately human level and see if whether the world as we know it ends within a year.
rwallace responded by saying:
My theory makes the prediction that even when recursive self-improvement is used, the results will be within the curve of capability, and will not produce more than a steady exponential rate of improvement. … Are you saying your theory makes no other predictions than [AI will cause the world to end]?
Then in your reply you say he is accusing you of making that claim.
The way he asked his question was impolite. However in the whole of this thread, you have not attempted to provide a single falsifiable point, despite the fact that this is what he was explicitly asking for.
At no point did the thread become, in my mind, about your belief that his argument was despicable. If I understand correctly, you believe that by drawing attention to technical details, he is drawing attention away from the strongest arguments on the topic and therefore moving people towards less correct beliefs in a dangerous way. This is a reasonable objection, but again at no point did I see this thread become about your objection in a positive light rather than being about his post in a negative light.
If you are interested in making your case explicitly, or demonstrating where you have attempted to make it, I would be very interested to see it. If you are interested in providing other explicit falsifiable claims or demonstrating where they have been made I would be interested to see that as well.
If you are interested only in discussing who knows the community better and using extremely vague terms like “mechanisms of reasoning as employed here” then I think we both have better ways to spend our time.
However in the whole of this thread, you have not attempted to provide a single falsifiable point, despite the fact that this is what he was explicitly asking for.
You are simply wrong.
‘Falsifiable’ isn’t a rally call… it actually refers to a distinct concept—and was supplied multiple times in a completely unambiguous fashion.
I think we both have better ways to spend our time.
I did not initiate this conversation and at no time did I desire it. I did choose to reply to some of your comments.
Ahh. That does make sense. I fundamentally disagree with everything else of significance in your judgement here but from your premises I can see how dissapointment is consistent.
I will not respond to those judgments except in as much as to say that I don’t agree with you on any of the significant points. My responses here are considered, necessary and if anything erred on the side of restraint. Bullshit, in the technical sense is the enemy here. This post and particularly the techniques used to defend it are bullshit in that sense. That it somehow got voted above −5 is troubling to me.
I agree that the arguments made in the original post tend to brush relevant details under the rug. But there is a difference between saying that an argument is flawed and trying to help fix it, and saying that it is irrelevant and the person is making a pure appeal to their own authority.
I was interested to see a more technical discussion of what sorts of things might be from the same reference class as recursive self-improvement. I was happy to see a viewpoint being represented on Less Wrong that was more diverse than the standard “party line.” Even if the argument is flawed I was glad to see it.
I would have been much happier to see the argument deconstructed than I am now having seen it turned into a flame war.
I believe I observed that it was far worse than an appeal to authority.
You do not understand the mechanisms of reasoning as employed here well enough to see why the comments here received the reception that they did.
In this comment rwallace asks you to make a falsifiable prediction. In this comment you state:
rwallace responded by saying:
Then in your reply you say he is accusing you of making that claim.
The way he asked his question was impolite. However in the whole of this thread, you have not attempted to provide a single falsifiable point, despite the fact that this is what he was explicitly asking for.
It is true that I do not understand the mechanisms. I thought that I understood that the policy of LessWrong is not to dismiss arguments but to fight the strongest argument that can be built out of that argument’s corpse.
At no point did the thread become, in my mind, about your belief that his argument was despicable. If I understand correctly, you believe that by drawing attention to technical details, he is drawing attention away from the strongest arguments on the topic and therefore moving people towards less correct beliefs in a dangerous way. This is a reasonable objection, but again at no point did I see this thread become about your objection in a positive light rather than being about his post in a negative light.
If you are interested in making your case explicitly, or demonstrating where you have attempted to make it, I would be very interested to see it. If you are interested in providing other explicit falsifiable claims or demonstrating where they have been made I would be interested to see that as well. If you are interested only in discussing who knows the community better and using extremely vague terms like “mechanisms of reasoning as employed here” then I think we both have better ways to spend our time.
You are simply wrong.
‘Falsifiable’ isn’t a rally call… it actually refers to a distinct concept—and was supplied multiple times in a completely unambiguous fashion.
I did not initiate this conversation and at no time did I desire it. I did choose to reply to some of your comments.