I really liked the bit. Possibly because I’ve been lowkey following his efforts.
He looks quite good, and I like the beard on him.
..
I’ve always thought that his failed attempts at researching weightloss and applying what he learned were a counter example of how applicable LW/EY rationality is. Glad to see he solved it when it became more important.
Eliezer clearly gets too much flack in general, and especially in this case. It’s not like I haven’t criticised him but come on.
several people’s reaction was, “Why is this guy talking to me like I’m his friend, I don’t even know him”
Really? Fine, you don’t know him but if you don’t know EY and are at a rationalist event why would you be surprised by not knowing a speaker? From the public’s reaction to his openning it should’ve been clear most people did know him.
I’m not against the concept of triggering—some stuff can be, including eating disorders, but like this? Can a person not talk at all about weight gain/loss? Is the solstice at all LW-related if things can’t be discussed even at their fairly basic (and socially accepted) level? Please, if you hated it give a detailed response as to why. I’m genuinely curious.
About 2-3 months earlier, I chatted with Eliezer at a party. Afterward, on the drive home, I said to my friend
“Gosh, Eliezer looks awfully spindly. It looks like he’s lost weight, but it’s all gone from his face and his arms.”
I was starting to make all these updates about how it doesn’t look good to lose weight when you’re hitting 40, and that it’s important to lose weight early, and so on.
I told this to Eliezer later. He said I got points for noticing my confusion, which I was pleased about.
I think it’s more like “people who are currently struggling to lose weight, or get out of negative cycles of crippling anxiety about it, seeing it made light of is hurtful.” (I think one can hold a legitimate position that that’s a real problem they can’t just ‘snap out of’ or whatnot, and that watching the speech would be legitimately harmful to them, independent of whether you think it’s better on-net for society to cater to that)
My actual current position was something like “it was good to move it to the end as an ‘after-the-credits’ scene, and good to describe it as optional, but because everyone was still seated and in some cases it was really awkward to move around, it didn’t really feel like a live option, and it would have been better to do something like ‘let people start to leave slightly before starting the bit so that people who wanted to keep moving out had an easier time doing so’”
How many people raised their hands when Eliezer asked about the probability estimate? When I was watching the video I gave a probability estimate of 65%, and I’m genuinely shocked that “not many” people thought he had over a 55% chance. This is Eliezer we’re talking about.............
He has been trying to do it for years and failed. The first time I read his attempts at doing that, years ago, I also assigned a high probability of success. Then 2 years passed and he hadn’t done it, then another 2 years..
You have to adjust your estimates based on your observations.
Could someone explain what the “Eliezer bit” actually was, for those of us who weren’t there?
You can watch it here.
I have a bunch of comments on this:
I really liked the bit. Possibly because I’ve been lowkey following his efforts.
He looks quite good, and I like the beard on him.
..
I’ve always thought that his failed attempts at researching weightloss and applying what he learned were a counter example of how applicable LW/EY rationality is. Glad to see he solved it when it became more important.
Eliezer clearly gets too much flack in general, and especially in this case. It’s not like I haven’t criticised him but come on.
Really? Fine, you don’t know him but if you don’t know EY and are at a rationalist event why would you be surprised by not knowing a speaker? From the public’s reaction to his openning it should’ve been clear most people did know him.
I’m not against the concept of triggering—some stuff can be, including eating disorders, but like this? Can a person not talk at all about weight gain/loss? Is the solstice at all LW-related if things can’t be discussed even at their fairly basic (and socially accepted) level? Please, if you hated it give a detailed response as to why. I’m genuinely curious.
That was excellent, and I quite enjoyed watching it. I’m not going to spoil it for anyone who’s not seen yet, of course, but I just want to say:
Well done, Eliezer!
Yeah, after watching that, I can’t see how anyone reasonable could dislike it. That was awesome.
You know,
About 2-3 months earlier, I chatted with Eliezer at a party. Afterward, on the drive home, I said to my friend
“Gosh, Eliezer looks awfully spindly. It looks like he’s lost weight, but it’s all gone from his face and his arms.”
I was starting to make all these updates about how it doesn’t look good to lose weight when you’re hitting 40, and that it’s important to lose weight early, and so on.
I told this to Eliezer later. He said I got points for noticing my confusion, which I was pleased about.
Maybe people who rationalized their failure to lose weight by “well, even Eliezer is overweight, it’s just metabolic disprivilege”
I think it’s more like “people who are currently struggling to lose weight, or get out of negative cycles of crippling anxiety about it, seeing it made light of is hurtful.” (I think one can hold a legitimate position that that’s a real problem they can’t just ‘snap out of’ or whatnot, and that watching the speech would be legitimately harmful to them, independent of whether you think it’s better on-net for society to cater to that)
My actual current position was something like “it was good to move it to the end as an ‘after-the-credits’ scene, and good to describe it as optional, but because everyone was still seated and in some cases it was really awkward to move around, it didn’t really feel like a live option, and it would have been better to do something like ‘let people start to leave slightly before starting the bit so that people who wanted to keep moving out had an easier time doing so’”
How many people raised their hands when Eliezer asked about the probability estimate? When I was watching the video I gave a probability estimate of 65%, and I’m genuinely shocked that “not many” people thought he had over a 55% chance. This is Eliezer we’re talking about.............
He has been trying to do it for years and failed. The first time I read his attempts at doing that, years ago, I also assigned a high probability of success. Then 2 years passed and he hadn’t done it, then another 2 years..
You have to adjust your estimates based on your observations.