I need to try a lot harder to remember that this is just a community full of individuals airing their strongly held personal opinions on a variety of topics.
Those opinions often have something in common—respect for the scientific method, effort to improve one’s rationality, concern about artificial intelligence—and I like to believe it is not just a random idiosyncratic mix (a bunch of random things Eliezer likes), but different manifestations of the same underlying principle (use your intelligence to win, not to defeat yourself). However, not everyone is interested in all of this.
And I would definitely like to see “somebody friendly, funny, empathic, a good performer, neat and practiced” promoting these values in a YouTube channel or in books. But that requires a talent I don’t have, so I can only wait until someone else with the necessary skills does it.
This reminded me of the YouTube channel of Julia Galef, but the latest videos there are 3 years old.
Her podcast is really good IMHO. She does a singularly good job of challenging guests in a friendly manner, dutifully tracking nuance, steelmanning, etc. It just picked back up after about a yearlong hiatus (presumably due to her book writing).
Unfortunately, I see the lack of notoriety for her podcast to be some evidence against the prospects of the “skilled & likeable performer” strategy. I assume that potential subscribers are more interested in lower-quality podcasts and YouTubers that indulge in bias rather than confronting it. Dunno what to do about that, but I’m glad she’s back to podcasting.
You’re right.
I need to try a lot harder to remember that this is just a community full of individuals airing their strongly held personal opinions on a variety of topics.
Those opinions often have something in common—respect for the scientific method, effort to improve one’s rationality, concern about artificial intelligence—and I like to believe it is not just a random idiosyncratic mix (a bunch of random things Eliezer likes), but different manifestations of the same underlying principle (use your intelligence to win, not to defeat yourself). However, not everyone is interested in all of this.
And I would definitely like to see “somebody friendly, funny, empathic, a good performer, neat and practiced” promoting these values in a YouTube channel or in books. But that requires a talent I don’t have, so I can only wait until someone else with the necessary skills does it.
This reminded me of the YouTube channel of Julia Galef, but the latest videos there are 3 years old.
Her podcast is really good IMHO. She does a singularly good job of challenging guests in a friendly manner, dutifully tracking nuance, steelmanning, etc. It just picked back up after about a yearlong hiatus (presumably due to her book writing).
Unfortunately, I see the lack of notoriety for her podcast to be some evidence against the prospects of the “skilled & likeable performer” strategy. I assume that potential subscribers are more interested in lower-quality podcasts and YouTubers that indulge in bias rather than confronting it. Dunno what to do about that, but I’m glad she’s back to podcasting.
That’s wonderful news, thank you for telling me!
For those who have clicked on the YouTube link in my previous comment, there is no new content as of now, go to the Rationally Speaking podcast.