I’m disappointed by EY’s response so far in this thread, particularly here. The content of the post above in itself did not significantly dismay me, but upon reading what appeared to be a serious lack of any rigorous updating on the part of EY to—what I and many LWers seemed to have thought were—valid concerns, my motivation to donate to the SI has substantially decreased.
I had originally planned to donate around $100 (starving college student) to the SI by the start of the new year, but this is now in question. (This is not an attempt at some sort of blackmail, just a frank response by someone who reads LW precisely to sift through material largely unencumbered by mainstream non-epistemic factors.) This is not to say that I will not donate at all, just that the warm fuzzies I would have received on donating are now compromised, and that I will have to purchase warm fuzzies elsewhere—instead of utilons and fuzzies all at once through the SI.
This is similar to how I feel. I was perfectly happy with his response to the incident but became progressively less happy with his responses to the responses.
There is a rare personality trait which allows a person to read and respond to hundreds of critical comments without compromising their perspicacity and composure. Luke, for instance, has demonstrated this trait; Eliezer hasn’t (to the detriment of this discussion and some prior ones).
(I’d bet at 10-to-1 that Eliezer agrees with this assessment.)
There is a rare personality trait which allows a person to read and respond to hundreds of critical comments without compromising their perspicacity and composure. Luke, for instance, has demonstrated this trait
Not sure I totally agree. My LW comments may show retained composure in most cases, but I can think of two instances in the past few months in which I became (mildly) emotional in SI meetings in ways that disrupted my judgment until after I had cooled down. Anna can confirm, as she happens to have been present for both meetings. (Eliezer could also confirm if he had better episodic memory.) The first instance was a board meeting at which we discussed different methods of tracking project expenses, the second was at a strategy meeting which Anna compared to a Markov chain.
Anyway, I’m aware of people who are better at this than I am, and building this skill is one of my primary self-improvement goals at this time.
Keeping one’s composure in person and keeping one’s composure on the Internet are distinct aptitudes (and only somewhat correlated, as far as I can tell), and it still looks to me like you’ve done well at the latter.
There is a rare personality trait which allows a person to read and respond to hundreds of critical comments without compromising their perspicacity and composure. Luke, for instance, has demonstrated this trait; Eliezer hasn’t (to the detriment of this discussion and some prior ones).
There is another personality trait (or skill) that allows one to be comfortable with acknowledging areas of weakness and delegating to people more capable. Fortunately Eliezer was able to do this with respect to managing SIAI. He seems to have lost some of that capability or awareness in recent times.
Quite possibly. I’d still oppose putting you in charge of the website.
Irrelevant and unnecessary. Particularly since I happen to have the self awareness in question, know that becoming Luke would be exhausting to me and so would immediately hand off the responsibility. What I wouldn’t do is go about acting how I naturally wish to act and be unable to comprehend why my actions have the consequences that they inevitably have.
:)
Why are you smiling? This makes your remark all the more objectionable (in as much as it indicates either wit or rapport, neither of which are present.)
I’m disappointed by EY’s response so far in this thread, particularly here. The content of the post above in itself did not significantly dismay me, but upon reading what appeared to be a serious lack of any rigorous updating on the part of EY to—what I and many LWers seemed to have thought were—valid concerns, my motivation to donate to the SI has substantially decreased.
I had originally planned to donate around $100 (starving college student) to the SI by the start of the new year, but this is now in question. (This is not an attempt at some sort of blackmail, just a frank response by someone who reads LW precisely to sift through material largely unencumbered by mainstream non-epistemic factors.) This is not to say that I will not donate at all, just that the warm fuzzies I would have received on donating are now compromised, and that I will have to purchase warm fuzzies elsewhere—instead of utilons and fuzzies all at once through the SI.
This is similar to how I feel. I was perfectly happy with his response to the incident but became progressively less happy with his responses to the responses.
There is a rare personality trait which allows a person to read and respond to hundreds of critical comments without compromising their perspicacity and composure. Luke, for instance, has demonstrated this trait; Eliezer hasn’t (to the detriment of this discussion and some prior ones).
(I’d bet at 10-to-1 that Eliezer agrees with this assessment.)
Not sure I totally agree. My LW comments may show retained composure in most cases, but I can think of two instances in the past few months in which I became (mildly) emotional in SI meetings in ways that disrupted my judgment until after I had cooled down. Anna can confirm, as she happens to have been present for both meetings. (Eliezer could also confirm if he had better episodic memory.) The first instance was a board meeting at which we discussed different methods of tracking project expenses, the second was at a strategy meeting which Anna compared to a Markov chain.
Anyway, I’m aware of people who are better at this than I am, and building this skill is one of my primary self-improvement goals at this time.
I appreciate you sharing this.
Keeping one’s composure in person and keeping one’s composure on the Internet are distinct aptitudes (and only somewhat correlated, as far as I can tell), and it still looks to me like you’ve done well at the latter.
There is another personality trait (or skill) that allows one to be comfortable with acknowledging areas of weakness and delegating to people more capable. Fortunately Eliezer was able to do this with respect to managing SIAI. He seems to have lost some of that capability or awareness in recent times.
Quite possibly. I’d still oppose putting you in charge of the website. :)
Irrelevant and unnecessary. Particularly since I happen to have the self awareness in question, know that becoming Luke would be exhausting to me and so would immediately hand off the responsibility. What I wouldn’t do is go about acting how I naturally wish to act and be unable to comprehend why my actions have the consequences that they inevitably have.
Why are you smiling? This makes your remark all the more objectionable (in as much as it indicates either wit or rapport, neither of which are present.)
Punishment received! Brain has learned to stop responding to responses.