I wrote this dialogue to stimulate object-level discussion on things like how infohazard policies slow down research, how new researchers can stop flailing around so much, whether deconfusion is a bottleneck to alignment, or the sharp left turn. I’m a bit sad that most of the comments are about exactly how much emotional damage Nate tends to cause people and whether this is normal/acceptable: it seems like a worthwhile conversation to happen somewhere, but now that many people have weighed in with experiences from other contexts, including non-research colleagues, a romantic partner, etc., I think all the drama distracts from the discussions I wanted to have. The LW team will be moving many comments to an escape-valve post; after this I’ll have a pretty low bar for downvoting comments I think are off-topic here.
I wrote this dialogue to stimulate object-level discussion on things like how infohazard policies slow down research, how new researchers can stop flailing around so much, whether deconfusion is a bottleneck to alignment, or the sharp left turn. I’m a bit sad that most of the comments are about exactly how much emotional damage Nate tends to cause people and whether this is normal/acceptable: it seems like a worthwhile conversation to happen somewhere, but now that many people have weighed in with experiences from other contexts, including non-research colleagues, a romantic partner, etc., I think all the drama distracts from the discussions I wanted to have. The LW team will be moving many comments to an escape-valve post; after this I’ll have a pretty low bar for downvoting comments I think are off-topic here.