The thing is—and here I disagree with your initial comment thread as well—peer pressure is useful. It is spectacularly useful and spectacularly powerful.
How can I make myself a more X person, for almost any value of X, even values that we would assume entirely inherent or immutable? Find a crowd of X people that are trying to be more X, shove myself in the middle, and stay there. If I want to be a better rationalist, I want friends that are better rationalists than me. If I want to be a better forecaster, I want friends that are better forecasters than me. If I want to be a more effective altruist, earn more to give more, learn more about Y academic topic, or any other similar goal, the single most powerful tool in my toolbox—or at least the most powerful tool that generalizes so easily—is to make more friends that already have those traits.
Can this go bad places? Of course it can. It’s a positive feedback cycle with no brakes save the ones we give it. But…
… well, to use very familiar logic: certainly, it could end the world. But if we could harness and align it, it could save the world, too.
(And ‘crowds of humans’, while kind of a pain to herd, are still much much easier than AI.)
Actually, no, I explicitly want both 1 and 2. Merely being more X than me doesn’t help me nearly as much as being both more X and also always on the lookout for ways to be even more X, because they can give me pointers and keep up with me when I catch up.
And sure, 3 is indeed what often happens.
… First of all, part of the whole point of all of this is to be able to do things that often fail, and succeed at them anyway; being able to do the difficult is something of prerequisite to doing the impossible.
Secondly, all shounen quips aside, it’s actually not that hard to tell when someone is merely pretending to be more X. It’s easy enough that random faux-philosophical teenagers can do it, after all :V. The hard part isn’t staying away from the affective death spiral, it’s trying to find the people who are actually trying among them—the ones who, almost definitionally, are not talking nearly as much about it, because “slay the Buddha” is actually surprisingly general advice.
Actually, no, I explicitly want both 1 and 2. Merely being more X than me doesn’t help me nearly as much as being both more X and also always on the lookout for ways to be even more X, because they can give me pointers and keep up with me when I catch up.
What I meant by #2 is “a crowd of people who are trying to be more X, but who, currently, aren’t any more X than you (or indeed very X at all, in the grand scheme of things)”, not that they’re already very X but are trying to be even more X.
EDIT:
Secondly, all shounen quips aside, it’s actually not that hard to tell when someone is merely pretending to be more X.
Empirically, it seems rather hard, in fact.
Well, either that, or a whole lot of people seem to have some reason for pretending not to be able to tell…
What I meant by #2 is “a crowd of people who are trying to be more X, but who, currently, aren’t any more X than you (or indeed very X at all, in the grand scheme of things)”, not that they’re already very X but are trying to be even more X.
Fair. Nevertheless, if the average of the group is around my own level, that’s good enough for me if they’re also actively trying. (Pretty much by definition of the average, really...)
Empirically, it seems rather hard, in fact.
Well, either that, or a whole lot of people seem to have some reason for pretending not to be able to tell…
… Okay, sorry, two place function. I don’t seem to have much trouble distinguishing.
(And yes, you can reasonably ask how I know I’m right, and whether or not I myself are good enough at the relevant Xs to tell, etc etc, but… well, at some point that all turns into wasted motions. Let’s just say that I am good enough at distinguishing to arrive at the extremely obvious answers, so I’m fairly confident I’ll at least not be easily mislead.)
The thing is—and here I disagree with your initial comment thread as well—peer pressure is useful. It is spectacularly useful and spectacularly powerful.
How can I make myself a more X person, for almost any value of X, even values that we would assume entirely inherent or immutable? Find a crowd of X people that are trying to be more X, shove myself in the middle, and stay there. If I want to be a better rationalist, I want friends that are better rationalists than me. If I want to be a better forecaster, I want friends that are better forecasters than me. If I want to be a more effective altruist, earn more to give more, learn more about Y academic topic, or any other similar goal, the single most powerful tool in my toolbox—or at least the most powerful tool that generalizes so easily—is to make more friends that already have those traits.
Can this go bad places? Of course it can. It’s a positive feedback cycle with no brakes save the ones we give it. But…
… well, to use very familiar logic: certainly, it could end the world. But if we could harness and align it, it could save the world, too.
(And ‘crowds of humans’, while kind of a pain to herd, are still much much easier than AI.)
You’re equivocating between the following:
To become more X, find a crowd of people who are more X.
To become more X, find a crowd of people who are trying to be more X.
Perhaps #1 works. But what is actually happening is #2.
… or at least, that’s what we might charitably hope is happening. But actually instead what often happens is:
To become more X, find a crowd of people who are pretending to try to be more X.
And that definitely doesn’t work.
Actually, no, I explicitly want both 1 and 2. Merely being more X than me doesn’t help me nearly as much as being both more X and also always on the lookout for ways to be even more X, because they can give me pointers and keep up with me when I catch up.
And sure, 3 is indeed what often happens.
… First of all, part of the whole point of all of this is to be able to do things that often fail, and succeed at them anyway; being able to do the difficult is something of prerequisite to doing the impossible.
Secondly, all shounen quips aside, it’s actually not that hard to tell when someone is merely pretending to be more X. It’s easy enough that random faux-philosophical teenagers can do it, after all :V. The hard part isn’t staying away from the affective death spiral, it’s trying to find the people who are actually trying among them—the ones who, almost definitionally, are not talking nearly as much about it, because “slay the Buddha” is actually surprisingly general advice.
What I meant by #2 is “a crowd of people who are trying to be more X, but who, currently, aren’t any more X than you (or indeed very X at all, in the grand scheme of things)”, not that they’re already very X but are trying to be even more X.
EDIT:
Empirically, it seems rather hard, in fact.
Well, either that, or a whole lot of people seem to have some reason for pretending not to be able to tell…
Right—they call it the “principle of charity.”
Fair. Nevertheless, if the average of the group is around my own level, that’s good enough for me if they’re also actively trying. (Pretty much by definition of the average, really...)
… Okay, sorry, two place function. I don’t seem to have much trouble distinguishing.
(And yes, you can reasonably ask how I know I’m right, and whether or not I myself are good enough at the relevant Xs to tell, etc etc, but… well, at some point that all turns into wasted motions. Let’s just say that I am good enough at distinguishing to arrive at the extremely obvious answers, so I’m fairly confident I’ll at least not be easily mislead.)