I find this comment a bit mean (and meaner than most of what I saw in this thread or the linked one, tho I haven’t read that one in much detail).
Maybe it’s because other people feel more strongly about this topic than I do; to me “democracy vs. monarchy” is both a confused and fuzzy question and an irrelevant one. Maybe with a lot of effort one can clarify the question and with even more effort, come up with an answer, but then it has no practical consequences.
Not mean-spirited. Just honest. If this were a private conversation, I’d keep my thoughts to myself and leave in search of more rational company, but when someone starts publicly saying things like...
“Eliezer [is] proclaiming that it’s not canon for this community.”
“The comment is basically like, ‘Scott Alexander good boy. We have paid him recently. Anissimov bad. Bad Anissimov no work for us no more.’”
Accusing Eliezer of dismissing an idea out of hand due to fear of public unpopularity.
(all of which are grossly unfair readings of Eliezer’s coment)
Not that much more unfair than proclaiming something thoroughly refuted and uninteresting based on a single post rebutting the least interesting claims of only two authors, especially given that what appears to have gotten picked up as the central point of the post (NK/SK) is wrong on many different levels.
I find this comment a bit mean (and meaner than most of what I saw in this thread or the linked one, tho I haven’t read that one in much detail).
Maybe it’s because other people feel more strongly about this topic than I do; to me “democracy vs. monarchy” is both a confused and fuzzy question and an irrelevant one. Maybe with a lot of effort one can clarify the question and with even more effort, come up with an answer, but then it has no practical consequences.
Chris is obviously being mean-spirited here, and a direct response would only escalate, so I won’t make one.
Not mean-spirited. Just honest. If this were a private conversation, I’d keep my thoughts to myself and leave in search of more rational company, but when someone starts publicly saying things like...
“Eliezer [is] proclaiming that it’s not canon for this community.”
“The comment is basically like, ‘Scott Alexander good boy. We have paid him recently. Anissimov bad. Bad Anissimov no work for us no more.’”
Accusing Eliezer of dismissing an idea out of hand due to fear of public unpopularity.
(all of which are grossly unfair readings of Eliezer’s coment)
...then I think some bluntness is called for.
Not that much more unfair than proclaiming something thoroughly refuted and uninteresting based on a single post rebutting the least interesting claims of only two authors, especially given that what appears to have gotten picked up as the central point of the post (NK/SK) is wrong on many different levels.