This is written in a sensationalist style that I find frustrating—especially because in the intro I was beginning to get interested in how you were going to dive into the mechanics of manufactured consensus. I agree that it seems plausible it’s a lab leak. However, I would have expected you, of all people, to want to reserve “crime of the century” for a different group of scientists. Small downvote for unnecessarily political-emotionally charged writing, especially when trying to counter existing political-emotionally charged writing. I agree that the intro describes accurately a large part of why I am having this reaction in the way I am, and that ducking under manufactured consensus to discuss this is useful—but I actually think that if we’re going to be trying to discuss under manufactured consensus, that it’s more and not less important to avoid sensationalism, in order to honor the emotions of people who will feel threatened by thinking they’re going to be the odd one out. I mean, like, the ratio of that problem on lesswrong is somewhat reduced, but it’s not zero. In any case, I agree that if gain of function research was the cause, it’s one of the worst crimes of the past century so far, and that it is plausible. After all, manufactured consensus occurs even when something is true, because outside of certain kinds of scientific communities people have a significant amount of trouble being predictively calibrated at all. Even when they are observing things directly, their views about them tend to be an oversimplified over-weighted consensus.
I’d argue that the covvid cascades were a failure of manufactured consensus.
The dynamic Roko described in the intro, people acting upon the perceived acceptability of others, is very similar to the concept that when faced with some novel thing people act based on the actions of those around them. I once read somewhere that the toilet paper hoarding was an example of this. With no idea of how to respond to an epidemic, everyone started doing the first thing they saw others were doing and that happened to be stories of people hoarding tp.
Extending that kind of herding behavior to Roko’s specific dynamic, one other behavior that gained acceptance as the proportion of individuals who publicly espoused the beliefs was engagement with conspiracy.
Now that I’m typing it out I could see this diverging of consensus reality as a sort of “manufactured consensus” as it established the bounds of acceptable discourse, it just doesn’t seem to be a very effective one if we’re looking at it from the pov of a ‘conspiracy of control’ from some shadow cabal.
It’s this lack of effectiveness, in coalescing society to flock in some specific direction to meet a very pressing challenge, that leads me to call it a failure of manufactured consensus.
I am quite aware of the severity of the harm done by the virus, and if that was caused by gain of function research, that’s obviously terrible and an atrocity on the scale of the worst ones of the past century, compare eg colonial starvation of india, holocaust, holodomor, etc. However, I think discussing it in a way that explicitly invites the readers to give themselves time to evaluate the evidence piece by piece will produce better reactions in people who subscribe to consensus. If you simply want to push false consensus in the other direction, sensationalism is appropriate; otherwise, it is not effective.
edit: Roko’s reply seems to me to have missed the point, but he’s absolutely correct, it’s just not related to my point; so, strong agree vote, no karma vote.
I think discussing it in a way that explicitly invites the readers to give themselves time to evaluate the evidence piece by piece will produce better reactions in people who subscribe to consensus.
Given that only 22% of surveyed experts had heard of DEFUSE, the main barrier may simply be getting any attention on this at all
I had not. it’s interesting evidence. I can’t share this link with people who should hear it because of how they will react, and my comments are about that.
I was interested at first, but phew that news source has some trash. The suggestions at the bottom include “the transgenderrainbow cage”. no thank you, I will not be linking this to anyone. Again, if you want to convince people who are not interested in the existing stuff, get it in a format that is not optimized to repel progressives.
then you will not impact consensus significantly. if you just want to convince lesswrong, sure, whatever. but if you want to break through into not having this be a polarized issue, you gotta get the message out of the polarizing language and sources.
Yes, it clearly is the article you’re talking about, except that you misquoted the title, and in such a way as to make it seem like something bad or insulting or some such thing. If you’re going to make claims about what content a site contains, you had better get your facts right.
EDIT: And… I am not sure what is the relevance of the comment you linked?
you posted an enormous picture of a transphobic article. you know how it’s relevant. anyway, edited the quote of the article title, since that’s so important to you.
you posted an enormous picture of a transphobic article. you know what the relevance is.
Sorry, no, I don’t. I didn’t read the article (nor have any particular interest in doing so). I have no idea whether said article is “transphobic” (or even what you mean by that). My comment was about your specific claim, to which your linked long comment does not seem to me to be relevant.
How can an article be transphobic? How is it transphobic to argue that ‘transgender ideology has contradictory premises’? I don’t particularly think that it does, but that’s a statement about an ideology- not about any person or group of persons.
This is written in a sensationalist style that I find frustrating—especially because in the intro I was beginning to get interested in how you were going to dive into the mechanics of manufactured consensus. I agree that it seems plausible it’s a lab leak. However, I would have expected you, of all people, to want to reserve “crime of the century” for a different group of scientists. Small downvote for unnecessarily political-emotionally charged writing, especially when trying to counter existing political-emotionally charged writing. I agree that the intro describes accurately a large part of why I am having this reaction in the way I am, and that ducking under manufactured consensus to discuss this is useful—but I actually think that if we’re going to be trying to discuss under manufactured consensus, that it’s more and not less important to avoid sensationalism, in order to honor the emotions of people who will feel threatened by thinking they’re going to be the odd one out. I mean, like, the ratio of that problem on lesswrong is somewhat reduced, but it’s not zero. In any case, I agree that if gain of function research was the cause, it’s one of the worst crimes of the past century so far, and that it is plausible. After all, manufactured consensus occurs even when something is true, because outside of certain kinds of scientific communities people have a significant amount of trouble being predictively calibrated at all. Even when they are observing things directly, their views about them tend to be an oversimplified over-weighted consensus.
I’d argue that the covvid cascades were a failure of manufactured consensus.
The dynamic Roko described in the intro, people acting upon the perceived acceptability of others, is very similar to the concept that when faced with some novel thing people act based on the actions of those around them. I once read somewhere that the toilet paper hoarding was an example of this. With no idea of how to respond to an epidemic, everyone started doing the first thing they saw others were doing and that happened to be stories of people hoarding tp.
Extending that kind of herding behavior to Roko’s specific dynamic, one other behavior that gained acceptance as the proportion of individuals who publicly espoused the beliefs was engagement with conspiracy.
Now that I’m typing it out I could see this diverging of consensus reality as a sort of “manufactured consensus” as it established the bounds of acceptable discourse, it just doesn’t seem to be a very effective one if we’re looking at it from the pov of a ‘conspiracy of control’ from some shadow cabal.
It’s this lack of effectiveness, in coalescing society to flock in some specific direction to meet a very pressing challenge, that leads me to call it a failure of manufactured consensus.
One death is a tragedy, 27 million is a statistic
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2ftJ38y9SRBCBsCzy/scope-insensitivity
I am quite aware of the severity of the harm done by the virus, and if that was caused by gain of function research, that’s obviously terrible and an atrocity on the scale of the worst ones of the past century, compare eg colonial starvation of india, holocaust, holodomor, etc. However, I think discussing it in a way that explicitly invites the readers to give themselves time to evaluate the evidence piece by piece will produce better reactions in people who subscribe to consensus. If you simply want to push false consensus in the other direction, sensationalism is appropriate; otherwise, it is not effective.
edit: Roko’s reply seems to me to have missed the point, but he’s absolutely correct, it’s just not related to my point; so, strong agree vote, no karma vote.
Given that only 22% of surveyed experts had heard of DEFUSE, the main barrier may simply be getting any attention on this at all
that’s possible. perhaps I will be an outlier.
Well, had you already heard of DEFUSE?
I had not. it’s interesting evidence. I can’t share this link with people who should hear it because of how they will react, and my comments are about that.
Share this then
https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-documents-bolster-lab-leak-hypothesis
I was interested at first, but phew that news source has some trash. The suggestions at the bottom include “the
transgenderrainbow cage”. no thank you, I will not be linking this to anyone. Again, if you want to convince people who are not interested in the existing stuff, get it in a format that is not optimized to repel progressives.some people truly are beyond help lol
then you will not impact consensus significantly. if you just want to convince lesswrong, sure, whatever. but if you want to break through into not having this be a polarized issue, you gotta get the message out of the polarizing language and sources.
False:
...true? that is the article I’m talking about.
incidentally, here’s my standard overview of my hunches of trans stuff
Yes, it clearly is the article you’re talking about, except that you misquoted the title, and in such a way as to make it seem like something bad or insulting or some such thing. If you’re going to make claims about what content a site contains, you had better get your facts right.
EDIT: And… I am not sure what is the relevance of the comment you linked?
you posted an enormous picture of a transphobic article. you know how it’s relevant. anyway, edited the quote of the article title, since that’s so important to you.
Sorry, no, I don’t. I didn’t read the article (nor have any particular interest in doing so). I have no idea whether said article is “transphobic” (or even what you mean by that). My comment was about your specific claim, to which your linked long comment does not seem to me to be relevant.
Thank you.
How can an article be transphobic? How is it transphobic to argue that ‘transgender ideology has contradictory premises’? I don’t particularly think that it does, but that’s a statement about an ideology- not about any person or group of persons.