There’s been some discussion of tradeoffs between a group’s ability to think together and its safety from reputational attacks. Both of these seem pretty essential to me, so I wish we’d move in the direction of a third option: recognizing public discourse on fraught topics as unavoidably farcical as well as often useless, moving away from the social norm of acting as if a consideration exists if and only if there’s a legible Post about it, building common knowledge of rationality and strategic caution among small groups, and in general becoming skilled at being esoteric without being dishonest or going crazy in ways that would have been kept in check by larger audiences. I think people underrate this approach because they understandably want to be thought gladiators flying truth as a flag. I’m more confident of the claim that we should frequently acknowledge the limits of public discourse than the other claims here.
I don’t think there’s a general solution. Eliezer’s old quote “The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.” applies to social movements and discussion groups just as well. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the right or the wrong side—you have attention and resources that the war can use for something else.
There _may_ be an option to be on neither side, and just stay out. Most often, that’s only available to those with no useful resources, or that can plausibly threaten both sides.
There’s been some discussion of tradeoffs between a group’s ability to think together and its safety from reputational attacks. Both of these seem pretty essential to me, so I wish we’d move in the direction of a third option: recognizing public discourse on fraught topics as unavoidably farcical as well as often useless, moving away from the social norm of acting as if a consideration exists if and only if there’s a legible Post about it, building common knowledge of rationality and strategic caution among small groups, and in general becoming skilled at being esoteric without being dishonest or going crazy in ways that would have been kept in check by larger audiences. I think people underrate this approach because they understandably want to be thought gladiators flying truth as a flag. I’m more confident of the claim that we should frequently acknowledge the limits of public discourse than the other claims here.
I don’t think there’s a general solution. Eliezer’s old quote “The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.” applies to social movements and discussion groups just as well. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the right or the wrong side—you have attention and resources that the war can use for something else.
There _may_ be an option to be on neither side, and just stay out. Most often, that’s only available to those with no useful resources, or that can plausibly threaten both sides.