Then what kind of democratic process did you have in mind?
The speaker replied:
Something like the Human Genome Project—that was an internationally sponsored research project.
I asked:
How would different interest groups resolve their conflicts in a structure like the Human Genome Project?
And the speaker said:
I don’t know.
In this old post, Eliezer is being insufficiently charitable and not steelmanning.
It is possible that I know that X can do A, but I don’t know how X can do A. “Look at X and do A similarly to that” may be a reasonable response when I am asked how to do A (or when I am told that A is just impossible). It may fail in some cases (such as when I am incorrect in my assumption that X and the current situation are similar enough), but it isn’t devoid of content to say that, and is more than an applause light.
In this old post, Eliezer is being insufficiently charitable and not steelmanning.
It is possible that I know that X can do A, but I don’t know how X can do A. “Look at X and do A similarly to that” may be a reasonable response when I am asked how to do A (or when I am told that A is just impossible). It may fail in some cases (such as when I am incorrect in my assumption that X and the current situation are similar enough), but it isn’t devoid of content to say that, and is more than an applause light.