I haven’t seen this mentioned explicitly, so I will. Your tone is off relative to this community, in particular ways that signal legitimate complaints.
You do a good job of sounding humble in some places, but your most-downvoted “ethicophysics I” sounds pretty hubristic. It seems to claim that you have a scientifically sound and complete explanation for religion and for history. Those are huge claims, and they’re mentioned with no hint of epistemic modesty (recognizing that you’re not sure you’re right).
This community is really big on epistemic modesty, and I think there’s a good reason. It’s easier to have productive discussions when everyone doesn’t just assume they’re sure they’re right, and assume the problem must be that others don’t recognize their infallible logic and evidence.
The other big problem with the tone and content of that post is that it doesn’t mention a single previous bit of work or thought, nor does it use terminology beyond “alignment” indicating that you have read others’ theories before writing about your own. I think this is also a legitimate cultural expectation. Everyone has limited reading time, so rereading the same ideas stated in different terms is a bad idea. If you haven’t read the previous literature, you’re probably restating existing ideas, and you can’t help the reader know where your ideas are new.
I actually upvoted that post because it’s succinct and actually addresses the alignment problem. But I think tone is a big reason people downvote, even if they don’t consciously recognize why they disliked something.
Well what’s the appropriate way to act in the face of the fact that I AM sure I am right? I’ve been offering public bets of the nickel of some high-karma person versus my $100, which seems like a fair and attractive bet for anyone who doubts my credibility and ability to reason about the things I am talking about.
I will happily bet anyone with significant karma that Yudkowsky will find my work on the ethicophysics valuable a year from now, at the odds given above.
I have around 2K karma and will take that bet at those odds, for up to 1000 dollars on my side.
Resolution criteria are to ask EY about his views on this sequence as of December 1st 2024, literally “which of Zac or MadHatter won this bet”, and resolves no payment if he declined to respond or does not explicitly rule for any other reason.
I’m happy to pay my loss by eg Venmo, and would request winnings as a receipt for your donation to GiveWell’s all-grants fund.
Hey @MadHatter—Eliezer confirms that I’ve won our bet.
I ask that you donate my winnings to GiveWell’s All Grants fund, here, via credit card or ACH (preferred due to lower fees). Please check the box for “I would like to dedicate this donation to someone” and include zac@zhd.dev as the notification email address so that I can confirm here that you’ve done so.
We’ve been in touch, and agreed that MatHatter will make the donation by end of February. I’ll post a final update in this thread when I get the confirmation from GiveWell.
Unfortunately MadHatter hasn’t responded to messages sent in March, and I haven’t heard anything from GiveWell to suggest that the donation has been made.
I feel like this should be more widely publicized as a possible reason for excluding MadHatter from future funding & opportunities in effective altruism/rationality/x-risk, and shaming this kind of behavior openly & loudly. (Potentially to the point of revealing a real-life identity? Not sure about this one.) Reaction is to the behavior of MadHatter, not to anything else.
This feels pretty harsh, for someone who’s already disengaged and where you don’t know their circumstances. If I see them around I’ll ask if they can afford to pay at least part or set up some kind of plan, but at 2000:1 odds playing hardball would feel like hurting someone rather than collecting on a friendly bet. (see e.g. my ask for a smaller size, above)
I think this does give me a principled basis to ask for some kind of escrow in any similar situations in future though; e.g. counterparty donates at time of bet, and I pay back CPI-adjusted donation plus my loss if I lose. (and I think I’m credible for that, e.g.).
Hm, I have no stake in this bet, but care a lot about having a high trust forum where people can expect others to follow through on lost bets, even with internet strangers. I’m happy enforcing this as a norm, even with hostile-seeming actions, because these kinds of norm transgressions need a Schelling fence.
As far as I can tell from their online personal details (which aren’t too hard to find), they have a day-job at a company that has (by my standards) very high salaries, so my best guess is that the $2k are not a problem. But I can contact MadHatter by email & check.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, I’d expect that MadHatter has disengaged from this community/cause anyway, so that kind of public reveal is not going to hurt them much, whereas it might have a big symbolic/common-knowledge-establishing value.
I think having my real name publicly & searchably associated with scummy behavior would discourage me from doing something, both in terms of future employers & random friends googling, as well as LLMs being trained on the internet.
I haven’t seen this mentioned explicitly, so I will. Your tone is off relative to this community, in particular ways that signal legitimate complaints.
You do a good job of sounding humble in some places, but your most-downvoted “ethicophysics I” sounds pretty hubristic. It seems to claim that you have a scientifically sound and complete explanation for religion and for history. Those are huge claims, and they’re mentioned with no hint of epistemic modesty (recognizing that you’re not sure you’re right).
This community is really big on epistemic modesty, and I think there’s a good reason. It’s easier to have productive discussions when everyone doesn’t just assume they’re sure they’re right, and assume the problem must be that others don’t recognize their infallible logic and evidence.
The other big problem with the tone and content of that post is that it doesn’t mention a single previous bit of work or thought, nor does it use terminology beyond “alignment” indicating that you have read others’ theories before writing about your own. I think this is also a legitimate cultural expectation. Everyone has limited reading time, so rereading the same ideas stated in different terms is a bad idea. If you haven’t read the previous literature, you’re probably restating existing ideas, and you can’t help the reader know where your ideas are new.
I actually upvoted that post because it’s succinct and actually addresses the alignment problem. But I think tone is a big reason people downvote, even if they don’t consciously recognize why they disliked something.
Well what’s the appropriate way to act in the face of the fact that I AM sure I am right? I’ve been offering public bets of the nickel of some high-karma person versus my $100, which seems like a fair and attractive bet for anyone who doubts my credibility and ability to reason about the things I am talking about.
I will happily bet anyone with significant karma that Yudkowsky will find my work on the ethicophysics valuable a year from now, at the odds given above.
I have around 2K karma and will take that bet at those odds, for up to 1000 dollars on my side.
Resolution criteria are to ask EY about his views on this sequence as of December 1st 2024, literally “which of Zac or MadHatter won this bet”, and resolves no payment if he declined to respond or does not explicitly rule for any other reason.
I’m happy to pay my loss by eg Venmo, and would request winnings as a receipt for your donation to GiveWell’s all-grants fund.
OK. I can only personally afford to be wrong to the tune of about $10K, which would be what, $5 on your part? Did I do that math correctly?
Yep, arithmetic matches. However if 10K is the limit you can reasonably afford, I’d be more comfortable betting my $1 against your $2000.
OK, sounds good! Consider it a bet.
Hey @MadHatter—Eliezer confirms that I’ve won our bet.
I ask that you donate my winnings to GiveWell’s All Grants fund, here, via credit card or ACH (preferred due to lower fees). Please check the box for “I would like to dedicate this donation to someone” and include zac@zhd.dev as the notification email address so that I can confirm here that you’ve done so.
Has @MadHatter replied or transferred the money yet?
We’ve been in touch, and agreed that MatHatter will make the donation by end of February. I’ll post a final update in this thread when I get the confirmation from GiveWell.
Unfortunately MadHatter hasn’t responded to messages sent in March, and I haven’t heard anything from GiveWell to suggest that the donation has been made.
I feel like this should be more widely publicized as a possible reason for excluding MadHatter from future funding & opportunities in effective altruism/rationality/x-risk, and shaming this kind of behavior openly & loudly. (Potentially to the point of revealing a real-life identity? Not sure about this one.) Reaction is to the behavior of MadHatter, not to anything else.
This feels pretty harsh, for someone who’s already disengaged and where you don’t know their circumstances. If I see them around I’ll ask if they can afford to pay at least part or set up some kind of plan, but at 2000:1 odds playing hardball would feel like hurting someone rather than collecting on a friendly bet. (see e.g. my ask for a smaller size, above)
I think this does give me a principled basis to ask for some kind of escrow in any similar situations in future though; e.g. counterparty donates at time of bet, and I pay back CPI-adjusted donation plus my loss if I lose. (and I think I’m credible for that, e.g.).
Hm, I have no stake in this bet, but care a lot about having a high trust forum where people can expect others to follow through on lost bets, even with internet strangers. I’m happy enforcing this as a norm, even with hostile-seeming actions, because these kinds of norm transgressions need a Schelling fence.
As far as I can tell from their online personal details (which aren’t too hard to find), they have a day-job at a company that has (by my standards) very high salaries, so my best guess is that the $2k are not a problem. But I can contact MadHatter by email & check.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, I’d expect that MadHatter has disengaged from this community/cause anyway, so that kind of public reveal is not going to hurt them much, whereas it might have a big symbolic/common-knowledge-establishing value.
I think having my real name publicly & searchably associated with scummy behavior would discourage me from doing something, both in terms of future employers & random friends googling, as well as LLMs being trained on the internet.
Done! Setting a calendar reminder; see you in a year.
Zac wins.
Change your beliefs
Convince literally one specific other person that you’re right and your quest is important, and have them help translate for a broader audience