A foundational text in some academic field might take 17 hours to read, but you would still expect someone to have read it before making a priori wild claims that contradicted the expert consensus of that field very radically.
There’s a good reason why the foundational text in an academic field would be a text and not a video. Evaluating arguments is easier to do when they are done via text.
I think that makes familiarising yourself with those arguments (whether from the debate or another equivalent-or-better source)
I don’t think anyone has shown that the debate contains specific arguments that Roko is unfamiliar with.
Evaluating arguments is easier to do when they are done via text.
Isn’t there a transcript? In any case, this seems to be highly subjective, and in my opinion not hugely relevant anyway. To extend the analogy, your expectation of someone’s having read foundational texts before making strong claims would hardly be lessened by the objection that the texts were hard to read.
I don’t think anyone has shown that the debate contains specific arguments that Roko is unfamiliar with.
Do we need to positively show that? As I mentioned, many intelligent, thoughtful people who were already very familiar with this question and its relevant facts updated significantly based on the debate. And Roko certainly hasn’t explicitly addressed all of the arguments therein. Isn’t that enough to suggest that he should at least watch it?
It’s equivalent to watching a season of a TV show- is that really such an onerous requirement for making incredibly strong, potentially libellous claims about a contentious issue with serious real-world ramifications?
If you watch a debate the way you would a TV show where you aren’t critically evaluating everything, that’s not a good basis for forming beliefs about the real world.
Youtube videos tend to encourage you to consume them in that way, but that doesn’t make it a good epistemic practice and that’s part of the reason why scientific debates usually happen in text.
There’s a good reason why the foundational text in an academic field would be a text and not a video. Evaluating arguments is easier to do when they are done via text.
I don’t think anyone has shown that the debate contains specific arguments that Roko is unfamiliar with.
See: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZdNyKE5yC4YjXGzfG/a-back-of-the-envelope-calculation-on-how-unlikely-the?commentId=cWCMuMpMQ98gqRB2G
Which to me strongly suggest Roko was unfamiliar with multiple (imo) strong evidence for the zoonosis origin.
Isn’t there a transcript? In any case, this seems to be highly subjective, and in my opinion not hugely relevant anyway. To extend the analogy, your expectation of someone’s having read foundational texts before making strong claims would hardly be lessened by the objection that the texts were hard to read.
Do we need to positively show that? As I mentioned, many intelligent, thoughtful people who were already very familiar with this question and its relevant facts updated significantly based on the debate. And Roko certainly hasn’t explicitly addressed all of the arguments therein. Isn’t that enough to suggest that he should at least watch it?
It’s equivalent to watching a season of a TV show- is that really such an onerous requirement for making incredibly strong, potentially libellous claims about a contentious issue with serious real-world ramifications?
No transcript, but the judges have documents where they outline their reasoning:
Will van Treuren’s doc
Eric Stansifer’s doc
If you watch a debate the way you would a TV show where you aren’t critically evaluating everything, that’s not a good basis for forming beliefs about the real world.
Youtube videos tend to encourage you to consume them in that way, but that doesn’t make it a good epistemic practice and that’s part of the reason why scientific debates usually happen in text.
I watch TV in a pretty focused way where I take things in.
But I wasn’t suggesting you watch it like a TV show; just that’s a similar time commitment (ie not an unreasonable one).