(Edited to add: Obviously, the existence of bad arguments for X does not preclude the existence of good arguments for X! The following is a narrow point of [hopefully] clarification, not an all-things-considered argument for a conclusion. See also footnote [2].)
I know that you don’t make Bad Argument 1—you were specifically one of the people I was thinking of when I wrote Footnote 2. I disagree that nobody makes Bad Argument 1. I think that Lone Pine’s comment on this very post is probably an example. I have seen lots of other examples, although I’m having trouble digging up other ones right now.
I guess you can say it’s unvirtuous / un-scout-mindset of me to spend more time refuting bad arguments for positions I disagree with, than refuting bad arguments for positions I agree with? Hmm.
I also changed the Kaj link from “Example of this argument” to “Example of something close to this argument”. As a matter of fact, I do actually think that Kaj’s post had some actual Bad-Argument-1-thinking slipping in in various places in his text. At least, that’s how it came across to me. But it’s probably not a good use of time to argue about that.
The edits help, thanks. I was in large part reacting to the fact that Kaj’s post reads very differently from your summary of Bad Argument 1 (rather than the fact that I don’t make Bad Argument 1). In the introductory paragraph where he states his position (the third paragraph of the post), he concludes:
Thus by doing capabilities research now, we buy ourselves a longer time period in which it’s possible to do more effective alignment research.
Which is clearly not equivalent to “alignment researchers hibernate for N years and then get back to work”.
Plausibly some actually Bad-Argument-1 is slipping in but it’s not the thing that is explicitly said in the introduction.
I guess you can say it’s unvirtuous / un-scout-mindset of me to spend more time refuting bad arguments for positions I disagree with, than refuting bad arguments for positions I agree with? Hmm.
Eh, this seems fine. I just don’t actually know of people who seriously believe Bad Argument 1 and would bet they are rare. So I predict that the main effect is making people who already believe your position even more confident in the position by virtue of thinking that the opponents of that position are stupid. More generally I wish that when people wrote takedowns of some incorrect position they try to establish that the position is actually commonly held.
(Separately, I am generally more in favor of posts that lay out the strongest arguments for and against a position and then coming to an overall conclusion, at which point you don’t have to worry about considerations like “does anyone believe the thing I’m refuting”, but those are significantly more effort.)
Thanks, I just added the following text:
I know that you don’t make Bad Argument 1—you were specifically one of the people I was thinking of when I wrote Footnote 2. I disagree that nobody makes Bad Argument 1. I think that Lone Pine’s comment on this very post is probably an example. I have seen lots of other examples, although I’m having trouble digging up other ones right now.
I guess you can say it’s unvirtuous / un-scout-mindset of me to spend more time refuting bad arguments for positions I disagree with, than refuting bad arguments for positions I agree with? Hmm.
I also changed the Kaj link from “Example of this argument” to “Example of something close to this argument”. As a matter of fact, I do actually think that Kaj’s post had some actual Bad-Argument-1-thinking slipping in in various places in his text. At least, that’s how it came across to me. But it’s probably not a good use of time to argue about that.
The edits help, thanks. I was in large part reacting to the fact that Kaj’s post reads very differently from your summary of Bad Argument 1 (rather than the fact that I don’t make Bad Argument 1). In the introductory paragraph where he states his position (the third paragraph of the post), he concludes:
Which is clearly not equivalent to “alignment researchers hibernate for N years and then get back to work”.
Plausibly some actually Bad-Argument-1 is slipping in but it’s not the thing that is explicitly said in the introduction.
Eh, this seems fine. I just don’t actually know of people who seriously believe Bad Argument 1 and would bet they are rare. So I predict that the main effect is making people who already believe your position even more confident in the position by virtue of thinking that the opponents of that position are stupid. More generally I wish that when people wrote takedowns of some incorrect position they try to establish that the position is actually commonly held.
(Separately, I am generally more in favor of posts that lay out the strongest arguments for and against a position and then coming to an overall conclusion, at which point you don’t have to worry about considerations like “does anyone believe the thing I’m refuting”, but those are significantly more effort.)
On further reflection, I promoted the thing from a footnote to the main text, elaborated on it, and added another thing at the end.
(I think I wrote this post in a snarkier way than my usual style, and I regret that. Thanks again for the pushback.)