“Doesn’t work against a perfectly rational, informed agent” does not preclude “works quite well against naïve, stupid newbie LW’ers that haven’t properly digested the sequences.”
Memetic hazard is not a fancy word for coverup. It means that the average person accessing the information is likely to reach dangerous conclusions. That says more about the average of humanity than the information itself.
Good point. To build on that here’s something I thought of when trying (but most likely not succeeding) to model/steelman Eliezer’s thoughts at the time of his decision:
This basilisk is clearly bullshit, but there’s a small (and maybe not vanishingly small) chance that with enough discussion people can come up with a sequence of “improved” basilisks that suffer from less and less obvious flaws until we end up with one worth taking seriously. It’s probably better to just nip this one in the bud. Also, creating and debunking all these basilisks would be a huge waste of time.
At least Eliezer’s move has focused all attention on the current (and easily debunked) basilisk, and it has made it sufficiently low-status to try and think of a better one. So in this sense it could even be called a success.
“Doesn’t work against a perfectly rational, informed agent” does not preclude “works quite well against naïve, stupid newbie LW’ers that haven’t properly digested the sequences.”
Memetic hazard is not a fancy word for coverup. It means that the average person accessing the information is likely to reach dangerous conclusions. That says more about the average of humanity than the information itself.
Good point. To build on that here’s something I thought of when trying (but most likely not succeeding) to model/steelman Eliezer’s thoughts at the time of his decision:
At least Eliezer’s move has focused all attention on the current (and easily debunked) basilisk, and it has made it sufficiently low-status to try and think of a better one. So in this sense it could even be called a success.
I would not call it a success. Sufficiently small silver linings are not worth focusing on with large-enough clouds.