I’m a little surprised that this rises to the level of needing to be addressed. There are a lot of bad theories on the internet. And a lot of kooky new age ideas in California. Without saying necessarily that this is one of them (though based on red flags it seems like it might be) why does this theory need to be criticized more than any other? That’s not a critique of te post by the way, just a request for more information.
Well, it’s a bit worrying if the “main cluster” of the LessWrong/rationalist/MIRI nebula, i.e. the Bay Area rationalists is propagating crackpotty ideas, or even just as susceptible to them as the general Bay Area population. I don’t know if it’s actually the case though. Maybe it’s more of a problem for the Effective Altruism movement (i.e. it attracts both rationalists and crackpots that share their ideas, but there’s no overlap between them).
There have been numerous critiques of Connection Theory already, and I encounter people disavowing it with much more frequency than people endorsing it, in both the rationalist and EA communities. So, I don’t think we have anything to worry about in that direction. I’m more worried by the zeal with which people criticize it, given that Leverage rarely seems to mention it, all of the online material about it is quite dated, and many of the people whose criticism of it I question don’t seem to actually know hardly anything about it.
To be extra clear: I’m not a proponent of CT; I’m very skeptical of it. It’s just distressing to me how quick the LW community is to politicize the issue.
One part that worries me is that they put on the EA Summit (and ran it quite well), and thus had a largish presence there. Anders’ talk was kind of uncomfortable to watch for me.
I’m a little surprised that this rises to the level of needing to be addressed. There are a lot of bad theories on the internet. And a lot of kooky new age ideas in California. Without saying necessarily that this is one of them (though based on red flags it seems like it might be) why does this theory need to be criticized more than any other? That’s not a critique of te post by the way, just a request for more information.
Well, it’s a bit worrying if the “main cluster” of the LessWrong/rationalist/MIRI nebula, i.e. the Bay Area rationalists is propagating crackpotty ideas, or even just as susceptible to them as the general Bay Area population. I don’t know if it’s actually the case though. Maybe it’s more of a problem for the Effective Altruism movement (i.e. it attracts both rationalists and crackpots that share their ideas, but there’s no overlap between them).
There have been numerous critiques of Connection Theory already, and I encounter people disavowing it with much more frequency than people endorsing it, in both the rationalist and EA communities. So, I don’t think we have anything to worry about in that direction. I’m more worried by the zeal with which people criticize it, given that Leverage rarely seems to mention it, all of the online material about it is quite dated, and many of the people whose criticism of it I question don’t seem to actually know hardly anything about it.
To be extra clear: I’m not a proponent of CT; I’m very skeptical of it. It’s just distressing to me how quick the LW community is to politicize the issue.
One part that worries me is that they put on the EA Summit (and ran it quite well), and thus had a largish presence there. Anders’ talk was kind of uncomfortable to watch for me.