informing SIAI that you will fund them if and only if they require their staff to exhibit a high degree of vigilance about the possibility of poisoning the existential risk meme by making claims that people find uncredible
I believe you are completely ignoring the status-demolishing effects of hypocrisy and insincerity.
When I first started watching Blogging Heads discussions featuring Eliezer I would often have moments where I held my breath thinking “Oh god, he can’t address that directly without sounding nuts, here comes the abhorrent back-peddling and waffling”. Instead he met it head on with complete honesty and did so in a way I’ve never seen other people able to pull off—without sounding nuts at all. In fact, sounding very reasonable. I’ve since updated enough that I no longer wince and hold my breath, I smile and await the triumph.
If, as most people (and nearly all politicians) do, he would have waffled and presented an argument that he doesn’t honestly hold, but that is more publicly acceptable, I’d feel disappointed and a bit sickened and I’d tune out the rest of what he has to say.
Hypocrisy is transparent. People (including neurotypical people) very easily see when others are making claims they don’t personally believe, and they universally despise such actions. Politicians and lawyers are among the most hated groups in modern societies, in large part because of this hypocrisy. They are only tolerated because they are seen as a necessary evil.
Right now, People Working To Reduce Existential Risk are not seen as necessary. So it’s highly unlikely that hypocrisy among them would be tolerated. They would repel anyone currently inclined to help, and their hypocrisy wouldn’t draw in any new support. The answer isn’t to try to deceive others about your true beliefs, it is to help make those beliefs more credible among the incredulous.
I feel that anyone advocating for public hypocrisy among the SIAI staff is working to disintegrate the organization (even if unintentionally).
When I first started watching Blogging Heads discussions featuring Eliezer I would often have moments where I held my breath thinking “Oh god, he can’t address that directly without sounding nuts, here comes the abhorrent back-peddling and waffling”. Instead he met it head on with complete honesty
I am so glad that someone notices and appreciates this.
I feel that anyone advocating for public hypocrisy among the SIAI staff is working to disintegrate the organization (even if unintentionally).
Well yes, exactly. If it takes a certain degree of hypocrisy to get campaign contributions, advertising, etc., and it takes these things to get elected… then you’re going to have to have a little hypocrisy in order to win.
And we do want to win, right? We want to actually reduce existential risk, and not just feel like we are?
If you can find a way to persuade people (and win elections, never forget that making policy in a democracy means winning elections) that doesn’t involve hypocrisy, I’m all ears.
Karma (despite the name) has very little to do with “deserve”. All it really means is that 26 (now 25) more people desire more content like this than desire less content like this.
On the other hand, it is a good thing to shift the Karma system to better resemble a system based on merit- i.e. they should vote down the comment up to a point because although it is a good one it doesn’t deserve it’s very high score.
Why should something that is mildly liked by many not have a higher score than something that is highly liked by fewer?
In any case, it’s rather hard to do. How do you propose to make your standards for a good comment the one other people use? Each individual sets their own level at which they will up- or down-vote a comment or post. They can indeed take into account the current score of a post, but that does rather poorly as others come by and change it. Should the first guy who up-voted that check back and see if it is now too highly rated? That seems hardly worth his time. And pretty much by definition, the guy who voted it from 25 to 26 was happier with the score at 26 than at 25, so at least one person does think it was worth 26.
And what happens as norms change as to what a “good score” is as more comments have more eyeballs and voters looking at them?
Or we could all just take karma beyond “net positive” and “net negative” a whole lot less seriously.
Complaining about a given score and the choices of others certainly isn’t likely to go much of anywhere.
I believe you are completely ignoring the status-demolishing effects of hypocrisy and insincerity.
When I first started watching Blogging Heads discussions featuring Eliezer I would often have moments where I held my breath thinking “Oh god, he can’t address that directly without sounding nuts, here comes the abhorrent back-peddling and waffling”. Instead he met it head on with complete honesty and did so in a way I’ve never seen other people able to pull off—without sounding nuts at all. In fact, sounding very reasonable. I’ve since updated enough that I no longer wince and hold my breath, I smile and await the triumph.
If, as most people (and nearly all politicians) do, he would have waffled and presented an argument that he doesn’t honestly hold, but that is more publicly acceptable, I’d feel disappointed and a bit sickened and I’d tune out the rest of what he has to say.
Hypocrisy is transparent. People (including neurotypical people) very easily see when others are making claims they don’t personally believe, and they universally despise such actions. Politicians and lawyers are among the most hated groups in modern societies, in large part because of this hypocrisy. They are only tolerated because they are seen as a necessary evil.
Right now, People Working To Reduce Existential Risk are not seen as necessary. So it’s highly unlikely that hypocrisy among them would be tolerated. They would repel anyone currently inclined to help, and their hypocrisy wouldn’t draw in any new support. The answer isn’t to try to deceive others about your true beliefs, it is to help make those beliefs more credible among the incredulous.
I feel that anyone advocating for public hypocrisy among the SIAI staff is working to disintegrate the organization (even if unintentionally).
I am so glad that someone notices and appreciates this.
Agreed.
On the other hand… people say they hate politicians and then vote for them anyway.
So hypocrisy does have upsides, and maybe we shouldn’t dismiss it so easily.
Who are they going to vote for instead?
Well yes, exactly. If it takes a certain degree of hypocrisy to get campaign contributions, advertising, etc., and it takes these things to get elected… then you’re going to have to have a little hypocrisy in order to win.
And we do want to win, right? We want to actually reduce existential risk, and not just feel like we are?
If you can find a way to persuade people (and win elections, never forget that making policy in a democracy means winning elections) that doesn’t involve hypocrisy, I’m all ears.
The above is a good comment, but 26 karma? How did it deserve that?
Karma (despite the name) has very little to do with “deserve”. All it really means is that 26 (now 25) more people desire more content like this than desire less content like this.
On the other hand, it is a good thing to shift the Karma system to better resemble a system based on merit- i.e. they should vote down the comment up to a point because although it is a good one it doesn’t deserve it’s very high score.
Why should something that is mildly liked by many not have a higher score than something that is highly liked by fewer?
In any case, it’s rather hard to do. How do you propose to make your standards for a good comment the one other people use? Each individual sets their own level at which they will up- or down-vote a comment or post. They can indeed take into account the current score of a post, but that does rather poorly as others come by and change it. Should the first guy who up-voted that check back and see if it is now too highly rated? That seems hardly worth his time. And pretty much by definition, the guy who voted it from 25 to 26 was happier with the score at 26 than at 25, so at least one person does think it was worth 26.
And what happens as norms change as to what a “good score” is as more comments have more eyeballs and voters looking at them?
Or we could all just take karma beyond “net positive” and “net negative” a whole lot less seriously.
Complaining about a given score and the choices of others certainly isn’t likely to go much of anywhere.