It’s certainly not about feeling good by identifying with a certain group. That helps no one, I agree.
But I’m sorry, the world simply is turning to this community for leadership. That is a thing that is happening in the world. There is a lot of very clear evidence. It is an extremely startling thing. It’s not about anyone getting or not getting credit. It’s about seeing things as they are.
But I’m sorry, the world simply is turning to this community for leadership. That is a thing that is happening in the world. There is a lot of very clear evidence.
my young software coworkers who don’t explicitly identify as “rationalists” read Slate Star Codex; when I asked someone at a Rust meetup in 2017 if she had heard of a blog called Less Wrong, she said “Oh, yes” in a knowing tone (that is, “we” are not just an obscure cluster of blogs that no one’s necessarily heard of; science/tech intellectuals have heard of “us”)
Upvoted for specificity, but I would characterize this as “we have some degree of influence and reputation” rather than “the world is turning to us for leadership”. (I guess from the “somewhat influential” in your other comment that you agree.)
Okay, I can see that, but as a writing tip for the future, rhetoric in the vein of “We are the great hope of our civilization” looks heavily optimized for the feeling-good-about-group-identification thing, rather than merely noticing the startling fact of being somewhat influential. And the startling fact of being somewhat influential makes it much more critical not to fall into the trap of valuing the group’s brand, if the reputational pressures of needing to protect the brand make us worse at thinking.
Agreed, but there are additional considerations here. The way that we interact with the wider world is influenced by the stories we tell ourselves about our relationship with the world, so narratives about our relationship with the world affect not just our sense of whether we are doing a good job, but also the tone with which we speak to the world, the ambition of our efforts, and the emotional impact of what we hear back from the world.
If we tell ourselves stories in which the world is mostly not on our side then we will speak to the world coercively, we’ll shy away from attempting big things, and we’ll be gradually worn down as we face difficulties.
But if we see, correctly, I believe, that most people actually have brief moments in which they can appreciate the dangers of powerful agentic systems being developed through ham-fisted engineering methods, and that the most switched-on people in the world seem to be turning to this particular community on these issues, then we might adopt quite a different internal demeanor as we approach these problems, not because we give ourselves some particular amount of credit for our past efforts, but because we see the world as fundamentally friendly to our efforts, without underestimating the depth and reality of the problems that need to be resolved.
I think this issue of friendliness is really the most central point. So far as I can tell, it makes a huge difference to see clearly what it is in the world that is fundamentally friendly to one’s efforts. Of course it’s also critical not to mistake that which is not friendly to our efforts as being friendly to our efforts. But if one doesn’t see that which is friendly towards us, then things just get lonely and exhausting real fast, which is doubly tragic because there is in fact something very real that really is deeply friendly towards our efforts.
It’s certainly not about feeling good by identifying with a certain group. That helps no one, I agree.
But I’m sorry, the world simply is turning to this community for leadership. That is a thing that is happening in the world. There is a lot of very clear evidence. It is an extremely startling thing. It’s not about anyone getting or not getting credit. It’s about seeing things as they are.
Name three pieces of evidence?
Dominic Cummnings was a chief adviser to the UK government and the strategist behind Brexit, and frequently cites “rationalist” authors (e.g., MIRI, Overcoming Bias, yudkowsky.net are on his blogroll)
Vox (33 million readers as of 2019) has an effective altruism section, including covering AI risk
my young software coworkers who don’t explicitly identify as “rationalists” read Slate Star Codex; when I asked someone at a Rust meetup in 2017 if she had heard of a blog called Less Wrong, she said “Oh, yes” in a knowing tone (that is, “we” are not just an obscure cluster of blogs that no one’s necessarily heard of; science/tech intellectuals have heard of “us”)
Upvoted for specificity, but I would characterize this as “we have some degree of influence and reputation” rather than “the world is turning to us for leadership”. (I guess from the “somewhat influential” in your other comment that you agree.)
Yeah, the exaggeration didn’t seem like a crux for anything important.
Okay, I can see that, but as a writing tip for the future, rhetoric in the vein of “We are the great hope of our civilization” looks heavily optimized for the feeling-good-about-group-identification thing, rather than merely noticing the startling fact of being somewhat influential. And the startling fact of being somewhat influential makes it much more critical not to fall into the trap of valuing the group’s brand, if the reputational pressures of needing to protect the brand make us worse at thinking.
Agreed, but there are additional considerations here. The way that we interact with the wider world is influenced by the stories we tell ourselves about our relationship with the world, so narratives about our relationship with the world affect not just our sense of whether we are doing a good job, but also the tone with which we speak to the world, the ambition of our efforts, and the emotional impact of what we hear back from the world.
If we tell ourselves stories in which the world is mostly not on our side then we will speak to the world coercively, we’ll shy away from attempting big things, and we’ll be gradually worn down as we face difficulties.
But if we see, correctly, I believe, that most people actually have brief moments in which they can appreciate the dangers of powerful agentic systems being developed through ham-fisted engineering methods, and that the most switched-on people in the world seem to be turning to this particular community on these issues, then we might adopt quite a different internal demeanor as we approach these problems, not because we give ourselves some particular amount of credit for our past efforts, but because we see the world as fundamentally friendly to our efforts, without underestimating the depth and reality of the problems that need to be resolved.
I think this issue of friendliness is really the most central point. So far as I can tell, it makes a huge difference to see clearly what it is in the world that is fundamentally friendly to one’s efforts. Of course it’s also critical not to mistake that which is not friendly to our efforts as being friendly to our efforts. But if one doesn’t see that which is friendly towards us, then things just get lonely and exhausting real fast, which is doubly tragic because there is in fact something very real that really is deeply friendly towards our efforts.