In both cases, the violence they used (Which I’m not condoning) seemed meant for resource acquisition (a precondition for anything else you must do). It’s not just randomly hurting people. I agree that it seems they are being quite ineffective and immoral. But I don’t think that contradicts the fact that she’s doing what she’s doing because she believes humanity is evil because everyone seems to be ok with factory farming. (“flesh-eating monsters”)
“Reading their posts it sounds more like Ziz misunderstood decision theory as saying “retaliate aggressively all the time” and started a cult around that.
While “retaliate aggressively all the time” does seem like a strawman, it is worth noting that Ziz rejects causal decision theory (a la “retaliate aggressively if it seems like it would cause things to go better, and avoid retaliating if it seems like it would cause things to go worse”) in favor of some sort of timeless/updateless decision theory (a la “retaliate aggressively even if it would cause things to go worse, as long as this means your retaliation is predictable enough to avoid ever running into the situation where you have to retaliate”).
Meanwhile other rationalist orgs might pretend to run on timeless/updateless decision theory but seem in practice to actually run on causal decision theory.
For an example, see the “rationalist fleet” post. Among other conflicts, it describes getting into a drawn-out conflict with a roommate/subletter (who by Ziz’s account was pretty abusive), ending with the below; it seems pretty illustrative of Ziz’s thought-process (and has nothing to do with veganism):
We all had reports to make to CPS. We called the landlord. The nanny reported him for driving drunk to Uber. I went to the police again, showed them my bruise, they still said I couldn’t prove anything. I thought I had a deontological obligation not to let him profit by aggression meant to drive me out of my home for resources. I wondered if this was enough. I felt like maybe I was deontologically obligated to stay there, but, fuck. The door didn’t really close anymore. There was a hole in it. I heard his child was taken away, and was satisfied with that. Then I heard he got him back. I considered whether to show up at fuck o’clock in the morning and put something in his car’s gas tank to destroy it. Murphyjitsu: bring a charged cordless drill to create a hole if it was one of those gas tank caps that locked, and actually look up what things will destroy an engine. (Not done with Murphyjitsu here). But I decided to leave this as a story that I could tell.
Up until writing this, I never gave him any further indication it was me who caused this.
If you combine the logic of “I must retaliate hard enough that the person, had they known this would happen, wouldn’t have acted badly in the first place” (regardless of whether the person even knows about the revenge), with a propensity to escalate (I suspect destroying the car engine would inflict economic costs significantly greater than whatever rent-payments were involved), an obvious disregard for breaking laws and destroying property, and a further disregard for “morality” (described elsewhere, like in the “journey to the dark side” post) such that even committing murder is on the table… then it’s not especially surprising that they’d conclude that, say, killing Jamie’s apparently-abusive parents a decade after the abuse was “deontologically obligatory”.
Meanwhile other rationalist orgs might pretend to run on timeless/updateless decision theory but seem in practice to actually run on causal decision theory.
What semi-inteligent humans natively do without thinking all that hard is closer to “updateless” decision theory than causal decision theory, and people who think that fancy decision theories imply radically different optimal behavior on the part of regular people are usually gravely misunderstanding what they actually say. The Zizians are an example of this.
In both cases, the violence they used (Which I’m not condoning) seemed meant for resource acquisition (a precondition for anything else you must do).
This is such an unrealistically charitable interpretation of the actions of the Ziz gang that I find it hard to understand what you really mean. If you find this at all a plausible underlying motivation for these murders I feel like you should become more acquainted with the history of violent political movements and cults, the majority of which said at some point “we’re just acquiring resources that we can use for the grand revolution” and maybe even meant it.
But I don’t think that contradicts the fact that she’s doing what she’s doing because she believes humanity is evil because everyone seems to be ok with factory farming. (“flesh-eating monsters”)
Hating humans and therefore doing mean things to them is compatible with a lot of behavior, but very few of those behaviors are “taking the plight of animals seriously and fighting for them with all of your heart.” Taking the plight of animals seriously and not doing obviously counterproductive or insane things in the name of “helping” them are one and the same, for me, and I don’t know what else it could be.
You seem to claim that a person that works ineffectively towards a cause doesn’t really believe in his cause—this is wrong. Many businesses fail in ridiculously stupid ways, doesn’t mean their owners didn’t really want to make a profit.
If a businessowner makes silly product decisions because of bounded rationality, then yes, it’s possible they were earnestly optimizing for success the whole time and just didn’t realize what the consequences of their actions would be.
If a(n otherwise intelligent) businessowner decides to shoot the clerk at the competitor taco stand across the street, then at the very least they must have valued something wayyyyy over building the business.
If an otherwise intelligent businessowner decides to shoot the clerk at the competitor taco stand across the street, then at the very least they must have valued something over than building the business.
Or the businessowner’s thinking process is damaged (despite being intelligent—these coexist a lot more often than we would like), and they sometimes do useful things and sometimes act counterproductively. You could view this as “they sometimes act in a way that soothes a damaged part of their mind, which they value more highly than building the business”. Which way of viewing it is more helpful?
I think the “damaged thinking” view would more likely predict that, when they’re soothing the damaged part of their mind, they don’t think through the consequences very thoroughly, while the other perspective—”they’re 100% rational, and their values include doing some of this weird stuff”—predicts they always understand the consequences. Now, you could add in another assumption: “They place high value on not thinking through the consequences of certain actions.” (I guess you can ultimately explain any behavior pattern by making enough assumptions about what they value.) I don’t have a strong position here on the best way of modeling it.
In both cases, the violence they used (Which I’m not condoning) seemed meant for resource acquisition (a precondition for anything else you must do). It’s not just randomly hurting people. I agree that it seems they are being quite ineffective and immoral. But I don’t think that contradicts the fact that she’s doing what she’s doing because she believes humanity is evil because everyone seems to be ok with factory farming. (“flesh-eating monsters”)
This is a strawman.
While “retaliate aggressively all the time” does seem like a strawman, it is worth noting that Ziz rejects causal decision theory (a la “retaliate aggressively if it seems like it would cause things to go better, and avoid retaliating if it seems like it would cause things to go worse”) in favor of some sort of timeless/updateless decision theory (a la “retaliate aggressively even if it would cause things to go worse, as long as this means your retaliation is predictable enough to avoid ever running into the situation where you have to retaliate”).
Meanwhile other rationalist orgs might pretend to run on timeless/updateless decision theory but seem in practice to actually run on causal decision theory.
For an example, see the “rationalist fleet” post. Among other conflicts, it describes getting into a drawn-out conflict with a roommate/subletter (who by Ziz’s account was pretty abusive), ending with the below; it seems pretty illustrative of Ziz’s thought-process (and has nothing to do with veganism):
If you combine the logic of “I must retaliate hard enough that the person, had they known this would happen, wouldn’t have acted badly in the first place” (regardless of whether the person even knows about the revenge), with a propensity to escalate (I suspect destroying the car engine would inflict economic costs significantly greater than whatever rent-payments were involved), an obvious disregard for breaking laws and destroying property, and a further disregard for “morality” (described elsewhere, like in the “journey to the dark side” post) such that even committing murder is on the table… then it’s not especially surprising that they’d conclude that, say, killing Jamie’s apparently-abusive parents a decade after the abuse was “deontologically obligatory”.
What semi-inteligent humans natively do without thinking all that hard is closer to “updateless” decision theory than causal decision theory, and people who think that fancy decision theories imply radically different optimal behavior on the part of regular people are usually gravely misunderstanding what they actually say. The Zizians are an example of this.
This is such an unrealistically charitable interpretation of the actions of the Ziz gang that I find it hard to understand what you really mean. If you find this at all a plausible underlying motivation for these murders I feel like you should become more acquainted with the history of violent political movements and cults, the majority of which said at some point “we’re just acquiring resources that we can use for the grand revolution” and maybe even meant it.
Hating humans and therefore doing mean things to them is compatible with a lot of behavior, but very few of those behaviors are “taking the plight of animals seriously and fighting for them with all of your heart.” Taking the plight of animals seriously and not doing obviously counterproductive or insane things in the name of “helping” them are one and the same, for me, and I don’t know what else it could be.
Is it tho
You seem to claim that a person that works ineffectively towards a cause doesn’t really believe in his cause—this is wrong. Many businesses fail in ridiculously stupid ways, doesn’t mean their owners didn’t really want to make a profit.
If a businessowner makes silly product decisions because of bounded rationality, then yes, it’s possible they were earnestly optimizing for success the whole time and just didn’t realize what the consequences of their actions would be.
If a(n otherwise intelligent) businessowner decides to shoot the clerk at the competitor taco stand across the street, then at the very least they must have valued something wayyyyy over building the business.
Or the businessowner’s thinking process is damaged (despite being intelligent—these coexist a lot more often than we would like), and they sometimes do useful things and sometimes act counterproductively. You could view this as “they sometimes act in a way that soothes a damaged part of their mind, which they value more highly than building the business”. Which way of viewing it is more helpful?
I think the “damaged thinking” view would more likely predict that, when they’re soothing the damaged part of their mind, they don’t think through the consequences very thoroughly, while the other perspective—”they’re 100% rational, and their values include doing some of this weird stuff”—predicts they always understand the consequences. Now, you could add in another assumption: “They place high value on not thinking through the consequences of certain actions.” (I guess you can ultimately explain any behavior pattern by making enough assumptions about what they value.) I don’t have a strong position here on the best way of modeling it.