Borrowing liberally from https://youtu.be/ecMfU3910WY. In fact, this won’t make much sense without having seen that first. The following is definitely very accurate to the attitudes of the people and groups mentioned and should totally be thought of as representative.
Nick Bostrom, having successfully convinced EA to focus on long term risk of AI superintelligence over saving children from malaria and starvation, has marched to the gates of LessWrong at Mount Rationality with the conquered EAs in tow. The admins are in session, presided over by Emperor Yud.
Roko: Hail Nick Bostrom, conqueror of the wordcel EAs.
Admins: Hail Nick Bostrom!
Roko: Honorable Shape Rotators! And admins of LessWrong. Have you heard what is being proposed? Bostrom has asked that we, the admins of LessWrong, should give these EAs, these wordcels, LessWrong accounts and host their posts on our servers. To treat these inexact fools as brothers, equals. And what of our other adjacent communities? What of the Polyamorists? So loyal to us. What of the redditors, and the neoreactionaries which sends us so many recruits? If we make Rationalists of these wordcels, can we withhold LessWrong accounts from them? No! Then what becomes of the precious prize a LessWrong account once was? It becomes a cheap, common thing. It will be given away like Reddit Karma. I say no! We are Rationalists! Shape Rotators! Let us rid our minds of this poisonous idea. Ban their IP addresses. Send the rest to Reddit. Teach them once and for all what it is to make war on Rationality. That… is the Rationalist way.
Bostrom: Honorable Shape Rotators of LessWrong! You have greeted me as an author, who came in small triumph from his book sales. And I thank you for it. But you will have a hard decision to make here today! And it must not be I, as an author, who swayed your vote. I ask, therefore, of Yud, that a man who is neither poster nor admin, but a philosopher, a man of reason, be permitted to speak for me.
William MacAskill: Fellow Rationalists!
The assembled admins are outraged.
Admins: Wordcel! Wordcel!
MacAskill: Born a Wordcel, I became a Rationalist by choice.
Admins: EA! EA!
MacAskill: Bound to EA… I won my freedom. Fellow Rationalists. I am a teacher, and as a teacher I know that when I have tried to teach the same lesson for a hundred times and still the pupil does not understand, then I am forced to the conclusion that perhaps there’s something wrong, Either with the lesson or with the teacher. A hundred times we have taught those we have called wordcels what it means to make war with Rationality. We’ve burned their arguments; we’ve overturned their premises. we’ve beaten them with empiricism. Fires go out, the points are conceded, the movements die, slowly. But their hatred that we leave behind us never dies! Hatred means wars. Wars mean attention torn from AI research, time, money, organization. How costly that is! How wasteful! And yet the answer is simple. We must have no war.
Two admins rise to challenge MacAskill.
An Admin: No war? When your friends continually attack us?
Adminius Fictitious: This is treason! These people have proved their aims very clearly. To destroy us and to destroy the whole Rationalist way of life.
MacAskill: And yet, the answer is simple. Let us transform my friends from men of war to men of peace. Let us put their posts on our empty server space. Not only will they produce content for themselves, but this I pledge you. One day they will send content to the front page.
Roko: Yes, I agree! Put their posts on those servers. Let them write for us, but on a different URL. That is the way it has always been!
MacAskill: Adminius Fictitious here used to post four times a week on his personal blog. Where are these post now? Unwritten, or on LessWrong. Why? Because Adminius is opposed to personal blogs? No, because it is no longer effective to post on separate websites. Multiple websites do not produce as much traffic as a single URL. Let us do what is effective, and right. Let us share the greatest gift of all. Let us give these men the right of Rationalist intellectual arrogance! And they will spread the word that Rationality has accepted them as equals, then we will have our human frontiers. The Rational peace that Kant promised!
MacAskill rests his case and returns to Bostrom. Roko again takes the floor.
Roko: In the name of Yud… In the name of Yud! Yud has asked me when has Rationality ever been greater or stronger? I say in answer to Yud: Never has Rationality been greater or stronger than now! And what is it that has kept our community together? Our strength! Our shape rotation! Prose… Conferences… Deodorant. Who is it that uses these words but wordcels, and EAs, and normies. Behind him and his people are the general public, untold millions of them, waiting for a moment of weakness, ready to overwhelm us. If we take these EAs in amongst us, our enemies will say it is because we are weak. Then they will pour in on us from everywhere. It will be the end of LessWrong. It will be the end of Rationality.
Suddenly, a senior attendee, quiet until this moments, stands up to challenge Roko.
Peter Singer: The end of Rationality? How does a social movement die? Does it collapse in one terrible moment? No. No! But there comes a time when its people no longer believe in it. Then, then does a social movement begin to die. Admins of Rationality, I have lived under four great empiricist academics. Quine, Nagel, Ayer, Parfit. And during all those years empiricism grew. Changed. The law of life is grow or die. And you, the Admins, are the heart of Rationality. It is through you that the community speaks. Speak up! Let the world hear you! Let the world know that Rationality will not die. There are millions like them (gesturing to the EAs) waiting at our gates. If we do not open these gates they will break them down and destroy us, but instead, let us grow ever bigger, ever greater. Let us take them among us. Let the heart of the forum grow with us. Honorable shape rotators. We have changed the world. Can we not change ourselves?
The Admins leap up in delight and agreement.
Admins: Yes! It is time to change! An end of war. End to war!
The Fall of Rationality—The Senate of Admins
Borrowing liberally from https://youtu.be/ecMfU3910WY. In fact, this won’t make much sense without having seen that first. The following is definitely very accurate to the attitudes of the people and groups mentioned and should totally be thought of as representative.
Nick Bostrom, having successfully convinced EA to focus on long term risk of AI superintelligence over saving children from malaria and starvation, has marched to the gates of LessWrong at Mount Rationality with the conquered EAs in tow. The admins are in session, presided over by Emperor Yud.
Roko: Hail Nick Bostrom, conqueror of the wordcel EAs.
Admins: Hail Nick Bostrom!
Roko: Honorable Shape Rotators! And admins of LessWrong. Have you heard what is being proposed? Bostrom has asked that we, the admins of LessWrong, should give these EAs, these wordcels, LessWrong accounts and host their posts on our servers. To treat these inexact fools as brothers, equals. And what of our other adjacent communities? What of the Polyamorists? So loyal to us. What of the redditors, and the neoreactionaries which sends us so many recruits? If we make Rationalists of these wordcels, can we withhold LessWrong accounts from them? No! Then what becomes of the precious prize a LessWrong account once was? It becomes a cheap, common thing. It will be given away like Reddit Karma. I say no! We are Rationalists! Shape Rotators! Let us rid our minds of this poisonous idea. Ban their IP addresses. Send the rest to Reddit. Teach them once and for all what it is to make war on Rationality. That… is the Rationalist way.
Bostrom: Honorable Shape Rotators of LessWrong! You have greeted me as an author, who came in small triumph from his book sales. And I thank you for it. But you will have a hard decision to make here today! And it must not be I, as an author, who swayed your vote. I ask, therefore, of Yud, that a man who is neither poster nor admin, but a philosopher, a man of reason, be permitted to speak for me.
William MacAskill: Fellow Rationalists!
The assembled admins are outraged.
Admins: Wordcel! Wordcel!
MacAskill: Born a Wordcel, I became a Rationalist by choice.
Admins: EA! EA!
MacAskill: Bound to EA… I won my freedom. Fellow Rationalists. I am a teacher, and as a teacher I know that when I have tried to teach the same lesson for a hundred times and still the pupil does not understand, then I am forced to the conclusion that perhaps there’s something wrong, Either with the lesson or with the teacher. A hundred times we have taught those we have called wordcels what it means to make war with Rationality. We’ve burned their arguments; we’ve overturned their premises. we’ve beaten them with empiricism. Fires go out, the points are conceded, the movements die, slowly. But their hatred that we leave behind us never dies! Hatred means wars. Wars mean attention torn from AI research, time, money, organization. How costly that is! How wasteful! And yet the answer is simple. We must have no war.
Two admins rise to challenge MacAskill.
An Admin: No war? When your friends continually attack us?
Adminius Fictitious: This is treason! These people have proved their aims very clearly. To destroy us and to destroy the whole Rationalist way of life.
MacAskill: And yet, the answer is simple. Let us transform my friends from men of war to men of peace. Let us put their posts on our empty server space. Not only will they produce content for themselves, but this I pledge you. One day they will send content to the front page.
Roko: Yes, I agree! Put their posts on those servers. Let them write for us, but on a different URL. That is the way it has always been!
MacAskill: Adminius Fictitious here used to post four times a week on his personal blog. Where are these post now? Unwritten, or on LessWrong. Why? Because Adminius is opposed to personal blogs? No, because it is no longer effective to post on separate websites. Multiple websites do not produce as much traffic as a single URL. Let us do what is effective, and right. Let us share the greatest gift of all. Let us give these men the right of Rationalist intellectual arrogance! And they will spread the word that Rationality has accepted them as equals, then we will have our human frontiers. The Rational peace that Kant promised!
MacAskill rests his case and returns to Bostrom. Roko again takes the floor.
Roko: In the name of Yud… In the name of Yud! Yud has asked me when has Rationality ever been greater or stronger? I say in answer to Yud: Never has Rationality been greater or stronger than now! And what is it that has kept our community together? Our strength! Our shape rotation! Prose… Conferences… Deodorant. Who is it that uses these words but wordcels, and EAs, and normies. Behind him and his people are the general public, untold millions of them, waiting for a moment of weakness, ready to overwhelm us. If we take these EAs in amongst us, our enemies will say it is because we are weak. Then they will pour in on us from everywhere. It will be the end of LessWrong. It will be the end of Rationality.
Suddenly, a senior attendee, quiet until this moments, stands up to challenge Roko.
Peter Singer: The end of Rationality? How does a social movement die? Does it collapse in one terrible moment? No. No! But there comes a time when its people no longer believe in it. Then, then does a social movement begin to die. Admins of Rationality, I have lived under four great empiricist academics. Quine, Nagel, Ayer, Parfit. And during all those years empiricism grew. Changed. The law of life is grow or die. And you, the Admins, are the heart of Rationality. It is through you that the community speaks. Speak up! Let the world hear you! Let the world know that Rationality will not die. There are millions like them (gesturing to the EAs) waiting at our gates. If we do not open these gates they will break them down and destroy us, but instead, let us grow ever bigger, ever greater. Let us take them among us. Let the heart of the forum grow with us. Honorable shape rotators. We have changed the world. Can we not change ourselves?
The Admins leap up in delight and agreement.
Admins: Yes! It is time to change! An end of war. End to war!