For me, the equivilant of Glen Beck would be someone like Roissy in DC. If Roissy endorsed the SIAI… well I’d probably keep giving but it would take away some of the joy.
I don’t have anything against Beck personally (although I think his specific views are hilariously silly & short-sighted & ethically blind), but I too would understand if many people about as left of center as me ideologically would be repelled by such a connection. We must tread carefully; LWers suck at politics.
LWers are great at politics. It’s just that politics suck for LWers.
Edit: Since my meaning wasn’t clear: Mind-killing is a feature not a bug of politics. It is not a truth-seeking activity and getting caught up in the signaling, the motivated thinking and the tribalism is not “being bad at politics”. It’s the opposite.
I think the comment that LWer suck at Politics is the more apt description.
Politics is the art of the possible, and that it deals with WHAT IS, regardless of whether that is “rational.”
And attempting to demand that it conform to rationality standards dictated by this community guarantees that this community will lack political clout.
Especially if it becomes known that the main beneficiaries and promoters of the Singularity have a particularly pathological politics.
Peter Thiel may well be a Libertarian Hero, but his name is instant death in even mainstream GOP circles, and he is seen as a fascist by the progressives.
Glenn Beck is seen as a dangerous and irrationally delusional ideologue by mainstream politicians.
That sort of endorsement isn’t going to help the cause if it becomes well known.
It will tar the Singularity as an ideological enclave of techno-supremists.
NO ONE at Less Wrong seems to be aware of the stigma attached to the Singularity after the performance of David Rose at the “Human Being in an Inhuman World” conference at Bard College in 2010. I was there, and got to witness the reactions of academics and political analysts from New York and Washington DC (some very powerful people in policy circles) who sat, mouths hanging aghast, at what David Rose was saying.
When these people discover that Glenn Beck is promoting the Singularity (and Glenn Beck has some very specific agendas in promoting it, that are very selfish and probably pretty offensive to the ideals of Less Wrong) these people will be even more convinced that the Singularity is a techno-cult composed of some very dangerous individuals.
I don’t have anything against Beck personally (although I think his specific views are hilariously silly & short-sighted & ethically blind), but I too would understand if many people about as left of center as me ideologically would be repelled by such a connection. We must tread carefully; LWers suck at politics.
LWers are great at politics. It’s just that politics suck for LWers.
Edit: Since my meaning wasn’t clear: Mind-killing is a feature not a bug of politics. It is not a truth-seeking activity and getting caught up in the signaling, the motivated thinking and the tribalism is not “being bad at politics”. It’s the opposite.
I think the comment that LWer suck at Politics is the more apt description.
Politics is the art of the possible, and that it deals with WHAT IS, regardless of whether that is “rational.”
And attempting to demand that it conform to rationality standards dictated by this community guarantees that this community will lack political clout.
Especially if it becomes known that the main beneficiaries and promoters of the Singularity have a particularly pathological politics.
Peter Thiel may well be a Libertarian Hero, but his name is instant death in even mainstream GOP circles, and he is seen as a fascist by the progressives.
Glenn Beck is seen as a dangerous and irrationally delusional ideologue by mainstream politicians.
That sort of endorsement isn’t going to help the cause if it becomes well known.
It will tar the Singularity as an ideological enclave of techno-supremists.
NO ONE at Less Wrong seems to be aware of the stigma attached to the Singularity after the performance of David Rose at the “Human Being in an Inhuman World” conference at Bard College in 2010. I was there, and got to witness the reactions of academics and political analysts from New York and Washington DC (some very powerful people in policy circles) who sat, mouths hanging aghast, at what David Rose was saying.
When these people discover that Glenn Beck is promoting the Singularity (and Glenn Beck has some very specific agendas in promoting it, that are very selfish and probably pretty offensive to the ideals of Less Wrong) these people will be even more convinced that the Singularity is a techno-cult composed of some very dangerous individuals.