How does a high-school dropout dare to write a series of articles about quantum physics? Only university professors are allowed to have opinions on such topic. Obviously, he must be a crackpot.
Have you noticed that most writings by laypeople on QM actually are crackpottery? RW’s priors are in the right place, at least.
I fully agree (about the priors on QM). The problem is somewhere else. I see two major flaws:
First, the “rationality” of RW lacks self-reflection. They sternly judge others, but consider themselves flawless. To explain what I mean, imagine that I would know nothing about QM other than the fact that 99% of online writings about QM are crackpottery; and then I would find an article about QM that sounds weird. -- Would I trust the article? No. That’s what the priors are for. Would I write my own article denouncing the author of the other article as a crackpot? No. Because I would be aware that I know nothing about QM, and that despite the 99% probability of crackpottery, there is also the 1% probability it is correct; and that my lack of knowledge does not allow me to update after reading the article itself, so I am stuck with my priors. I would try to leave writing the denunciation to someone who actually understands the topic; to someone who can say “X is wrong, because it is actually Y”, instead of merely “X is wrong, because, uhm, my priors” or even “X is wrong, trust me, I am the expert”. But the latest version is most similar to what RW does. They pretend to be experts at science and pseudoscience, but in fact they are not. They merely follow a few simple heuristics which allow them to be correct in most cases, and sometimes they misfire. In this specific case, they followed a (good) heuristic about QM writings, instead of actually understanding QM and judging Eliezer’s articles by their content; but they made it sound like there is a problem specifically with the articles.
Second, it is difficult to update if you burn the bridges after making your first estimate. If I publicly say I disagree with you, I may later change my mind and say that after giving it more thought I actually agree with you; and I will not lose a lot of face, especially among rational people. But if instead I publicly call you a crackpot or worse, and then it turns out that maybe you were right… it will cost me a lot of face to admit it. Being a human, the natural reaction is to double down regardless of evidence, cherry-pick in favor of my original judgment, and try to move the goalpost. And you can hardly avoid burning the bridges if you make everything political (is Eliezer’s libertarianism really relevant for evaluating whether he is wrong about QM? no, but was so tempting to connect libertarianism with supposed crackpottery), and if your culture of communication is “snarky” i.e. when you are an asshole and proud of it.
To make a mistake when the priors point the wrong way is unavoidable. To resist further evidence so strongly that a few years down the line you are spending your nights editing your opponent’s Wikipedia page just to prove that you were right… that’s insane.
I suppose that people who disagree with the snarky way of looking at political opponents will not remain for long time.
There is also a difference between a forum and a wiki. (Medium is the message, kind of.) In a forum, you can write an article expressing your opinions, and then I can write an article about why I disagree with your opinions. In a wiki, I will simply revert your edit. Thus, wikis are more likely to converge to a unified view.
Have you noticed that most writings by laypeople on QM actually are crackpottery? RW’s priors are in the right place, at least.
I fully agree (about the priors on QM). The problem is somewhere else. I see two major flaws:
First, the “rationality” of RW lacks self-reflection. They sternly judge others, but consider themselves flawless. To explain what I mean, imagine that I would know nothing about QM other than the fact that 99% of online writings about QM are crackpottery; and then I would find an article about QM that sounds weird. -- Would I trust the article? No. That’s what the priors are for. Would I write my own article denouncing the author of the other article as a crackpot? No. Because I would be aware that I know nothing about QM, and that despite the 99% probability of crackpottery, there is also the 1% probability it is correct; and that my lack of knowledge does not allow me to update after reading the article itself, so I am stuck with my priors. I would try to leave writing the denunciation to someone who actually understands the topic; to someone who can say “X is wrong, because it is actually Y”, instead of merely “X is wrong, because, uhm, my priors” or even “X is wrong, trust me, I am the expert”. But the latest version is most similar to what RW does. They pretend to be experts at science and pseudoscience, but in fact they are not. They merely follow a few simple heuristics which allow them to be correct in most cases, and sometimes they misfire. In this specific case, they followed a (good) heuristic about QM writings, instead of actually understanding QM and judging Eliezer’s articles by their content; but they made it sound like there is a problem specifically with the articles.
Second, it is difficult to update if you burn the bridges after making your first estimate. If I publicly say I disagree with you, I may later change my mind and say that after giving it more thought I actually agree with you; and I will not lose a lot of face, especially among rational people. But if instead I publicly call you a crackpot or worse, and then it turns out that maybe you were right… it will cost me a lot of face to admit it. Being a human, the natural reaction is to double down regardless of evidence, cherry-pick in favor of my original judgment, and try to move the goalpost. And you can hardly avoid burning the bridges if you make everything political (is Eliezer’s libertarianism really relevant for evaluating whether he is wrong about QM? no, but was so tempting to connect libertarianism with supposed crackpottery), and if your culture of communication is “snarky” i.e. when you are an asshole and proud of it.
To make a mistake when the priors point the wrong way is unavoidable. To resist further evidence so strongly that a few years down the line you are spending your nights editing your opponent’s Wikipedia page just to prove that you were right… that’s insane.
Are you quite sure “they” are a cohesive goup?
Are you quite sure “they” couldn’t possibly include any actual physicists?
So LW never makes sweeping denunciations?
I suppose that people who disagree with the snarky way of looking at political opponents will not remain for long time.
There is also a difference between a forum and a wiki. (Medium is the message, kind of.) In a forum, you can write an article expressing your opinions, and then I can write an article about why I disagree with your opinions. In a wiki, I will simply revert your edit. Thus, wikis are more likely to converge to a unified view.
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