What this site does or does not care about does not add up to right and wrong, since opinion is not fact, nor belief argument. The way I am using “rational” has a history that goes back centuries. This site has introduced a relatively novel definition, and therefore has the burden of defending it.
and ‘objective’ to mean something we would consider far closer to ‘subjective’ than ‘objective’.)
What this site does or does not care about does not add up to right and wrong
What this site does or does not care about is rather significantly informative regarding whether or not something belongs on the site—especially when thatundesired thing is so actively and shamelessly equivocated with that which is the primary subject matter of the site. The subject matter of your comments is not the ‘rationality’ that this site talks about and, similarly, the reasoning used in your comments does not conform to rational thinking as described on lesswrong. It does not belong here, it belongs in a Philosophy department somewhere where hopefully it does no particular harm and is used to produce papers only encountered by others in similar departments.
The way I am using “rational” has a history that goes back centuries.
I don’t believe you (in fact, you don’t even use the word consistently). But let’s assume for the remainder of the comment that this claim is true.
This site has introduced a relatively novel definition, and therefore has the burden of defending it.
Neither this site nor any particular participant need accept any such burden. They have the option of simply opposing muddled or misleading contributions in the same way that they would oppose adds for “p3ni$ 3nL@rgm3nt”. (Personally I consider it considerably worse than that spam in as much as it is at least more obvious on first glance that spam doesn’t belong here.)
What this site does or does not care about is rather significantly informative regarding whether or not something belongs on the site
Firstly northing I have mentioned is on any list of banned topics.
Secondly, the Paperclipper is about exploring theoretical issues of rationality and morality. It is not about any practical issues regarding the “art of rationality”. You can legitimately claim to be only interested in doing certain things, but you can’t win a debate by claiming to be uninterested in other people’s points.
doesn’t belong here.)
What you really think is that disagreement doens’t belong here. Maybe it doesn’t
If I called you a pigfucker, you’d see that as an abuse worthy of downvotes that doesn’t contribute anything useful, and you’d be right.
So if accusing one person of pigfucking is bad, why do you think it’s better to call a whole bunch of people cultists? Because that’s a more genteel insult as it doesn’t include the word “fuck” in it?
As such downvoted. Learn to treat people with respect, if you want any respect back.
As such downvoted. Learn to treat people with respect, if you want any respect back.
I’d like to give qualified support to whowhowho here in as much as I must acknowledge that this particular criticism applies because he made the name calling generic, rather than finding a way to specifically call me names and leave the rest of you out of it. While it would be utterly pointless for whowhowho to call me names (unless he wanted to make me laugh) it would be understandable and I would not dream of personally claiming offense.
I was, after all, showing whowhowho clear disrespect, of the kind Robin Hanson describes. I didn’t resort to name calling but the fact that I openly and clearly expressed opposition to whowhowho’s agenda and declared his dearly held beliefs muddled is perhaps all the more insulting because it is completely sincere, rather than being constructed in anger just to offend him.
It is unfortunate that I cannot accord whowhowho the respect that identical behaviours would earn him within the Philosopher tribe without causing harm to lesswrong. Whowhowho uses arguments that by lesswrong standards we call ‘bullshit’, in support of things we typically dismiss as ‘nonsense’. It is unfortunate that opposition of this logically entails insulting him and certainly means assigning him far lower status than he believes he deserves. The world would be much simpler if opponents really were innately evil, rather than decent people who are doing detrimental things due to ignorance or different preferences.
“Cult” is not a meaningless term of abuse. There are criteria for culthood. I think some people here could be displaying some evidence of them—for instance trying to avoid the very possibiliy of having to update.
Of course, treating an evidence-based claim as a mere insult --the How Dare You move—is another way of avoiding having to face uncomfortable issues.
I see your policy is to now merely heap on more abuse on me. Expect that I will be downvoting such in silence from now on.
There are criteria for culthood. I think some people here could be displaying some evidence of them—for instance trying to avoid the very possibiliy of having to update.
I think I’ve been more willing and ready to update on opinions (political, scientific, ethical, other) in the two years since I joined LessWrong, than I remember myself updating in the ten years before it. Does that make it an anti-cult then?
And I’ve seen more actual disagreement in LessWrong than I’ve seen on any other forum. Indeed I notice that most insults and mockeries addressed at LessWrong indeed seem to actually boil down to the concept that we allow too different positions here. Too different positions (e.g. support of cryonics and opposition of cryonics both, feminism and men’s rights both, libertarianism and authoritarianism both) can be actually spoken about without immediately being drowned in abuse and scorn, as would be the norm in other forums.
As such e.g. fanatical Libertarians insult LessWrong as totalitarian leftist because 25% or so of LessWrongers identifying as socialists, and leftists insult LessWrong as being a libertarian ploy (because a similar percentage identifies as libertarian)
But feel free to tell me of a forum that allows more disagreement, political, scientific, social, whatever than LessWrong does.
If you can’t find such, I’ll update towards the direction that LessWrong is even less “cultish” than I thought.
I see your policy is to now merely heap on more abuse on me
AFAIC, I have done no such thing, but it seems your mind is made up.
I think I’ve been more willing and ready to update on opinions
I was referring mainly to Wedifrid.
ETA: Such comments as “What this site does or does not care about is rather significantly informative regarding whether or not something belongs on the site—especially when thatundesired thing is so actively and shamelessly equivocated with that which is the primary subject matter of the site. The subject matter of your comments is not the ‘rationality’ that this site talks about and, similarly, the reasoning used in your comments does not conform to rational thinking as described on lesswrong. It does not belong here, it belongs in a Philosophy department somewhere where hopefully it does no particular harm and is used to produce papers only encountered by others in similar departments.”
But feel free to tell me of a forum that allows more disagreement, political, scientific, social, whatever than LessWrong does.
Oh, the forum’—the rules—allow almost anything. The members are another thing. Remember, this started with Wedifrid telling me that it was wrong of me to put forward non-lessWrongian material. I find it odd that you would put forward such a stirring defence of LessWrognian open-mindedness when you have an example of close-mindedness upthread.
It’s the members I’m talking about. (You also failed to tell me of a forum such as I asked, so I update in the direction of you being incapable of doing so)
On the same front, you treat as a single member as representative of the whole, and you seem frigging surprised that I don’t treat wedrifid as representative of the whole LessWrong—you see wedrifid’s behaviour as an excuse to insult all of us instead.
That’s more evidence that you’re accustomed to VERY homogeneous forums, ones much more homogeneous than LessWrong. You think that LessWrong tolerating wedrifid’s “closedmindedness” is the same thing as every LessWronger beind “closedminded”. Perhaps we’re openminded to his “closedmindedness” instead? Perhaps your problem is that we allow too much disagreement, including disagreement about how much disagreement to have?
I gave you an example of a member who is not particularly open minded.
(You also failed to tell me of a forum such as I asked, so I update in the direction of you being incapable of doing so)
I have been using mainstream science and philosophy forums for something like 15 years. I can’t claim that every single person on them is open minded, but those who are not tend to be seen as a problem.
On the same front, you treat as a single member as representative of the whole,
If you think Wedifrid is letting the side down, tell Wedifird, not me.
I can’t claim that every single person on them is open minded, but those who are not tend to be seen as a problem.
In short again your problem is that actually we’re even openminded towards the closeminded? We’re lenient even towards the strict? Liberal towards the authoritarian?
If you think Wedifrid is letting the side down, tell Wedifird, not me.
What “side” is that? The point is that there are many sides in LessWrong—and I want it to remain so. While you seem to think we ought sing the same tune. He didn’t “let the side down”, because the only side anyone of us speaks is their own.
You on the other hand, just assumed there’s just a group mind of which wedrifid is just a representative instance. And so felt free to insult all of us as a “cult”.
“My problem is that when I point out someone is close minded, that is seen as a problem on my part, and not on theirs.”
Next time don’t feel the need to insult me when you point out wedrifid’s close minded-ness. And yes, you did insult me, don’t insult (again) both our intelligences by pretending that you didn’t.
Tell Wedifrid.
He didn’t insult me, you did.
“Have you heard he expression “protesteth too much” ?”
Yes, I’ve heard lots of different ways of making the target of an unjust insult seem blameworthy somehow.
I gave you an example of a member who is not particularly open minded.
I put it to you that whatever the flaws in wedrifid may be they are different in kind to the flaws that would indicate that lesswrong is a cult. In fact the presence—and in particular the continued presence—of wedrifid is among the strongest evidence that Eliezer isn’t a cult leader. When Eliezer behaves badly (as perceived by wedrifid and other members) wedrifid vocally opposes him with far more directness than he has used when opposing yourself. That Eliezer has not excommunicated him from the community is actually extremely surprising. Few with Eliezer’s degree of local power would refrain from using to suppress any dissent. (I remind myself of this whenever I see Eliezer doing something that I consider to be objectionable or incompetent, it helps keep perspective!)
Whatever. Can you provide me with evidence that you personally, are willing to listen to dissent and possibly update despite the tone of everything you have been saying recently, eg.
“What this site does or does not care about is rather significantly informative regarding whether or not something belongs on the site—especially when thatundesired thing is so actively and shamelessly equivocated with that which is the primary subject matter of the site. The subject matter of your comments is not the ‘rationality’ that this site talks about and, similarly, the reasoning used in your comments does not conform to rational thinking as described on lesswrong. It does not belong here, it belongs in a Philosophy department somewhere where hopefully it does no particular harm and is used to produce papers only encountered by others in similar departments.”
Few with Eliezer’s degree of local power would refrain from using to suppress any dissent.
Maybe has has people to do that for him. Maybe.
whenever I see Eliezer doing something dickish or incompetent
Firstly northing I have mentioned is on any list of banned topics.
I would be completely indifferent if you did. I don’t choose defy that list (that would achieve little) but neither do I have any particular respect for it. As such I would take no responsibility for aiding the enforcement thereof.
Secondly, the Paperclipper is about exploring theoretical issues of rationality and morality.
Yes. The kind of rationality you reject, not the kind of ‘rationality’ that is about being vegan and paperclippers deciding to behave according to your morals because of “True Understanding of Pain Quale”.
You can legitimately claim to be only interested in doing certain things, but you can’t win a debate by claiming to be uninterested in other people’s points.
I can claim to have tired of a constant stream of non-sequiturs from users who are essentially ignorant of the basic principles of rationality (the lesswrong kind, not the “Paperclippers that are Truly Superintelligent would be vegans” kind) and have next to zero chance of learning anything. You have declared that you aren’t interested in talking about rationality and your repeated equivocations around that term lower the sanity waterline. It is time to start weeding.
Yes. The kind of rationality you reject, not the kind of ‘rationality’ that is about being vegan and paperclippers deciding to behave according to your morals because of “True Understanding of Pain Quale”.
I said nothing about veganism, and you still can;t prove anything by stipulative definition, and I am not claiming to have the One True theory of anything.
You have declared that you aren’t interested in talking about rationality
I haven’t and I have been discussing it extensively.
You have declared that you aren’t interested in talking about rationality
I haven’t and I have been discussing it extensively.
Can we please stop doing this?
You and wedrifid aren’t actually disagreeing here about what you’ve been discussing, or what you’re interested in discussing, or what you’ve declared that you aren’t interested in discussing. You’re disagreeing about what the word “rationality” means. You use it to refer to a thing that you have been discussing extensively (and which wedrifid would agree you have been discussing extensively), he uses it to refer to something else (as does almost everyone reading this discussion).
And you both know this perfectly well, but here you are going through the motions of conversation just as if you were talking about the same thing. It is at best tedious, and runs the risk of confusing people who aren’t paying careful enough attention into thinking you’re having a real substantive disagreements rather than a mere definitional dispute.
If we can’t agree on a common definition (which I’m convinced by now we can’t), and we can’t agree not to use the word at all (which I suspect we can’t), can we at least agree to explicitly indicate which definition we’re using when we use the word? Otherwise whatever value there may be in the discussion is simply going to get lost in masturbatory word-play.
Well, can you articulate what it is you and wedrifid are both referring to using the word “rationality” without using the words or its simple synonyms, then? Because reading your exchanges, I have no idea what that thing might be.
What I call rationality is a superset of instrumental. I have been arguing that instrumental rationality, when pursued sufficiently bleeds into other forms.
So, just to echo that back to you… we have two things, A and B. On your account, “rationality” refers to A, which is a superset of B. We posit that on wedrifid’s account, “rationality” refers to B and does not refer to A.
Yes?
If so, I don’t see how that changes my initial point.
When wedrifid says X is true of rationality, on your account he’s asserting X(B) -- that is, that X is true of B. Replying that NOT X(A) is nonresponsive (though might be a useful step along the way to deriving NOT X(B) ), and phrasing NOT X(A) as “no, X is not true of rationality” just causes confusion.
On your account, “rationality” refers to A, which is a superset of B.
We posit that on wedrifid’s account, “rationality” refers to B and does not refer to A.
It refers to part of A, since it is a subset of A.
When wedrifid says X is true of rationality, on your account he’s asserting X(B) -- that is, that X is true of B. Replying that NOT X(A) is nonresponsive
It would be if A and B were disjoint. But they are not. They are in a superset-subset relation. My arguments is that an entity running on narrowly construed, instrumental rationality will, if it self improves, have to move into wider kinds. ie,that putting labels on different parts of the territoy is not sufficient to prove
orthogonality.
What this site does or does not care about does not add up to right and wrong, since opinion is not fact, nor belief argument. The way I am using “rational” has a history that goes back centuries. This site has introduced a relatively novel definition, and therefore has the burden of defending it.
Feel free to expand on that point.
What this site does or does not care about is rather significantly informative regarding whether or not something belongs on the site—especially when thatundesired thing is so actively and shamelessly equivocated with that which is the primary subject matter of the site. The subject matter of your comments is not the ‘rationality’ that this site talks about and, similarly, the reasoning used in your comments does not conform to rational thinking as described on lesswrong. It does not belong here, it belongs in a Philosophy department somewhere where hopefully it does no particular harm and is used to produce papers only encountered by others in similar departments.
I don’t believe you (in fact, you don’t even use the word consistently). But let’s assume for the remainder of the comment that this claim is true.
Neither this site nor any particular participant need accept any such burden. They have the option of simply opposing muddled or misleading contributions in the same way that they would oppose adds for “p3ni$ 3nL@rgm3nt”. (Personally I consider it considerably worse than that spam in as much as it is at least more obvious on first glance that spam doesn’t belong here.)
Firstly northing I have mentioned is on any list of banned topics.
Secondly, the Paperclipper is about exploring theoretical issues of rationality and morality. It is not about any practical issues regarding the “art of rationality”. You can legitimately claim to be only interested in doing certain things, but you can’t win a debate by claiming to be uninterested in other people’s points.
What you really think is that disagreement doens’t belong here. Maybe it doesn’t
If I called you a pigfucker, you’d see that as an abuse worthy of downvotes that doesn’t contribute anything useful, and you’d be right.
So if accusing one person of pigfucking is bad, why do you think it’s better to call a whole bunch of people cultists? Because that’s a more genteel insult as it doesn’t include the word “fuck” in it?
As such downvoted. Learn to treat people with respect, if you want any respect back.
I’d like to give qualified support to whowhowho here in as much as I must acknowledge that this particular criticism applies because he made the name calling generic, rather than finding a way to specifically call me names and leave the rest of you out of it. While it would be utterly pointless for whowhowho to call me names (unless he wanted to make me laugh) it would be understandable and I would not dream of personally claiming offense.
I was, after all, showing whowhowho clear disrespect, of the kind Robin Hanson describes. I didn’t resort to name calling but the fact that I openly and clearly expressed opposition to whowhowho’s agenda and declared his dearly held beliefs muddled is perhaps all the more insulting because it is completely sincere, rather than being constructed in anger just to offend him.
It is unfortunate that I cannot accord whowhowho the respect that identical behaviours would earn him within the Philosopher tribe without causing harm to lesswrong. Whowhowho uses arguments that by lesswrong standards we call ‘bullshit’, in support of things we typically dismiss as ‘nonsense’. It is unfortunate that opposition of this logically entails insulting him and certainly means assigning him far lower status than he believes he deserves. The world would be much simpler if opponents really were innately evil, rather than decent people who are doing detrimental things due to ignorance or different preferences.
So much for “maybe”.
“Cult” is not a meaningless term of abuse. There are criteria for culthood. I think some people here could be displaying some evidence of them—for instance trying to avoid the very possibiliy of having to update.
Of course, treating an evidence-based claim as a mere insult --the How Dare You move—is another way of avoiding having to face uncomfortable issues.
I see your policy is to now merely heap on more abuse on me. Expect that I will be downvoting such in silence from now on.
I think I’ve been more willing and ready to update on opinions (political, scientific, ethical, other) in the two years since I joined LessWrong, than I remember myself updating in the ten years before it. Does that make it an anti-cult then?
And I’ve seen more actual disagreement in LessWrong than I’ve seen on any other forum. Indeed I notice that most insults and mockeries addressed at LessWrong indeed seem to actually boil down to the concept that we allow too different positions here. Too different positions (e.g. support of cryonics and opposition of cryonics both, feminism and men’s rights both, libertarianism and authoritarianism both) can be actually spoken about without immediately being drowned in abuse and scorn, as would be the norm in other forums.
As such e.g. fanatical Libertarians insult LessWrong as totalitarian leftist because 25% or so of LessWrongers identifying as socialists, and leftists insult LessWrong as being a libertarian ploy (because a similar percentage identifies as libertarian)
But feel free to tell me of a forum that allows more disagreement, political, scientific, social, whatever than LessWrong does.
If you can’t find such, I’ll update towards the direction that LessWrong is even less “cultish” than I thought.
AFAIC, I have done no such thing, but it seems your mind is made up.
I was referring mainly to Wedifrid.
ETA: Such comments as “What this site does or does not care about is rather significantly informative regarding whether or not something belongs on the site—especially when thatundesired thing is so actively and shamelessly equivocated with that which is the primary subject matter of the site. The subject matter of your comments is not the ‘rationality’ that this site talks about and, similarly, the reasoning used in your comments does not conform to rational thinking as described on lesswrong. It does not belong here, it belongs in a Philosophy department somewhere where hopefully it does no particular harm and is used to produce papers only encountered by others in similar departments.”
Oh, the forum’—the rules—allow almost anything. The members are another thing. Remember, this started with Wedifrid telling me that it was wrong of me to put forward non-lessWrongian material. I find it odd that you would put forward such a stirring defence of LessWrognian open-mindedness when you have an example of close-mindedness upthread.
It’s the members I’m talking about. (You also failed to tell me of a forum such as I asked, so I update in the direction of you being incapable of doing so)
On the same front, you treat as a single member as representative of the whole, and you seem frigging surprised that I don’t treat wedrifid as representative of the whole LessWrong—you see wedrifid’s behaviour as an excuse to insult all of us instead.
That’s more evidence that you’re accustomed to VERY homogeneous forums, ones much more homogeneous than LessWrong. You think that LessWrong tolerating wedrifid’s “closedmindedness” is the same thing as every LessWronger beind “closedminded”. Perhaps we’re openminded to his “closedmindedness” instead? Perhaps your problem is that we allow too much disagreement, including disagreement about how much disagreement to have?
I gave you an example of a member who is not particularly open minded.
I have been using mainstream science and philosophy forums for something like 15 years. I can’t claim that every single person on them is open minded, but those who are not tend to be seen as a problem.
If you think Wedifrid is letting the side down, tell Wedifird, not me.
In short again your problem is that actually we’re even openminded towards the closeminded? We’re lenient even towards the strict? Liberal towards the authoritarian?
What “side” is that? The point is that there are many sides in LessWrong—and I want it to remain so. While you seem to think we ought sing the same tune. He didn’t “let the side down”, because the only side anyone of us speaks is their own.
You on the other hand, just assumed there’s just a group mind of which wedrifid is just a representative instance. And so felt free to insult all of us as a “cult”.
My problem is that when I point out someone is close minded, that is seen as a problem on my part, and not on theirs.
Tell Wedifrid. He has explictly stated that my contributions are somehow unacceptable.
I pointed out that Wedifrid is assuming that.
ETA:
Have you heard he expression “protesteth too much” ?
Next time don’t feel the need to insult me when you point out wedrifid’s close minded-ness. And yes, you did insult me, don’t insult (again) both our intelligences by pretending that you didn’t.
He didn’t insult me, you did.
Yes, I’ve heard lots of different ways of making the target of an unjust insult seem blameworthy somehow.
I put it to you that whatever the flaws in wedrifid may be they are different in kind to the flaws that would indicate that lesswrong is a cult. In fact the presence—and in particular the continued presence—of wedrifid is among the strongest evidence that Eliezer isn’t a cult leader. When Eliezer behaves badly (as perceived by wedrifid and other members) wedrifid vocally opposes him with far more directness than he has used when opposing yourself. That Eliezer has not excommunicated him from the community is actually extremely surprising. Few with Eliezer’s degree of local power would refrain from using to suppress any dissent. (I remind myself of this whenever I see Eliezer doing something that I consider to be objectionable or incompetent, it helps keep perspective!)
Whatever. Can you provide me with evidence that you personally, are willing to listen to dissent and possibly update despite the tone of everything you have been saying recently, eg.
“What this site does or does not care about is rather significantly informative regarding whether or not something belongs on the site—especially when thatundesired thing is so actively and shamelessly equivocated with that which is the primary subject matter of the site. The subject matter of your comments is not the ‘rationality’ that this site talks about and, similarly, the reasoning used in your comments does not conform to rational thinking as described on lesswrong. It does not belong here, it belongs in a Philosophy department somewhere where hopefully it does no particular harm and is used to produce papers only encountered by others in similar departments.”
Maybe has has people to do that for him. Maybe.
Aris! insult alert!
Directed at a specific individual who is not me—unlike your own insults.
This is non-sequitur (irrespective of the traits of wedrifid).
Wedrifid denies this accusation. Wedrifid made entirely different claims than this.
What about Wedifrid, though? Can you speak for him, too?
I would be completely indifferent if you did. I don’t choose defy that list (that would achieve little) but neither do I have any particular respect for it. As such I would take no responsibility for aiding the enforcement thereof.
Yes. The kind of rationality you reject, not the kind of ‘rationality’ that is about being vegan and paperclippers deciding to behave according to your morals because of “True Understanding of Pain Quale”.
I can claim to have tired of a constant stream of non-sequiturs from users who are essentially ignorant of the basic principles of rationality (the lesswrong kind, not the “Paperclippers that are Truly Superintelligent would be vegans” kind) and have next to zero chance of learning anything. You have declared that you aren’t interested in talking about rationality and your repeated equivocations around that term lower the sanity waterline. It is time to start weeding.
I said nothing about veganism, and you still can;t prove anything by stipulative definition, and I am not claiming to have the One True theory of anything.
I haven’t and I have been discussing it extensively.
Can we please stop doing this?
You and wedrifid aren’t actually disagreeing here about what you’ve been discussing, or what you’re interested in discussing, or what you’ve declared that you aren’t interested in discussing. You’re disagreeing about what the word “rationality” means. You use it to refer to a thing that you have been discussing extensively (and which wedrifid would agree you have been discussing extensively), he uses it to refer to something else (as does almost everyone reading this discussion).
And you both know this perfectly well, but here you are going through the motions of conversation just as if you were talking about the same thing. It is at best tedious, and runs the risk of confusing people who aren’t paying careful enough attention into thinking you’re having a real substantive disagreements rather than a mere definitional dispute.
If we can’t agree on a common definition (which I’m convinced by now we can’t), and we can’t agree not to use the word at all (which I suspect we can’t), can we at least agree to explicitly indicate which definition we’re using when we use the word? Otherwise whatever value there may be in the discussion is simply going to get lost in masturbatory word-play.
I don’t accept his theory that he is talking about something entirely different, and it would be disastrous for LW anyway.
Huh. (blinks)
Well, can you articulate what it is you and wedrifid are both referring to using the word “rationality” without using the words or its simple synonyms, then? Because reading your exchanges, I have no idea what that thing might be.
What I call rationality is a superset of instrumental. I have been arguing that instrumental rationality, when pursued sufficiently bleeds into other forms.
So, just to echo that back to you… we have two things, A and B.
On your account, “rationality” refers to A, which is a superset of B.
We posit that on wedrifid’s account, “rationality” refers to B and does not refer to A.
Yes?
If so, I don’t see how that changes my initial point.
When wedrifid says X is true of rationality, on your account he’s asserting X(B) -- that is, that X is true of B. Replying that NOT X(A) is nonresponsive (though might be a useful step along the way to deriving NOT X(B) ), and phrasing NOT X(A) as “no, X is not true of rationality” just causes confusion.
It refers to part of A, since it is a subset of A.
It would be if A and B were disjoint. But they are not. They are in a superset-subset relation. My arguments is that an entity running on narrowly construed, instrumental rationality will, if it self improves, have to move into wider kinds. ie,that putting labels on different parts of the territoy is not sufficient to prove orthogonality.