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wedrifid comments on Eliezer Yudkowsky Facts - Less Wrong
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Comments (290)
It looks like it turned awful since I've read it the last time:
The most fatal mistake of the entry in its current form seems to be that it does lump together all of Less Wrong and therefore does stereotype its members. So far this still seems to be a community blog with differing opinions. I got a Karma score of over 1700 and I have been criticizing the SIAI and Yudkowsky (in a fairly poor way).
I hope you people are reading this. I don't see why you draw a line between you and Less Wrong. This place is not an invite-only party.
I don't think this is the case anymore. You can easily get Karma by criticizing him and the SIAI. Most of all new posts are not written by him anymore either.
Nah!
I don't think this is asked too much. As the FAQ states:
Why do you all agree on so much? Am I joining a cult?
We have a general community policy of not pretending to be open-minded on long-settled issues for the sake of not offending people. If we spent our time debating the basics, we would never get to the advanced stuff at all.
So? I don't see what this is supposed to prove.
Provide some references here.
I've been criticizing the subject matter and got upvoted for it, as you obviously know since you linked to my comments as reference. Further I never claimed that the topic is unproblematic or irrational but that I was fearing unreasonable consequences and that I have been in disagreement about how the content was handled. Yet I do not agree with your portrayal insofar that it is not something that fits a Wiki entry about Less Wrong. Because something sounds extreme and absurd it is not wrong. In theory there is nothing that makes the subject matter fallacious.
I haven't read the quantum physics sequence but by what I have glimpsed this is not the crucial point that distinguishes MWI from other interpretations. That's why people suggest one should read the material before criticizing it.
P.S. I'm curious if you know of a more intelligent and rational community than Less Wrong? I don't! Proclaiming that Less Wrong is more rational than most other communities isn't necessarily factually wrong.
Edit: "[...] by what I have glimpsed this is just wrong." now reads "[...] by what I have glimpsed this is not the crucial point that distinguishes MWI from other interpretations."
I know, I loved that quote. I just couldn't work out why it was presented as a bad thing.
Descartes is maybe the single best example of motivated cognition in the history of Western thought. Though interestingly, there are some theories that he was secretly an atheist.
I assume their point has something to do with those three being rationalists in the traditional sense... but I don't think Rational Wiki is using the word in the traditional sense either. Would Descartes have been allowed to edit an entry on souls?
You think the average person on LessWrong ranks with Spinoza and Leibniz? I disagree.
Do you mean Spinoza or Leibniz given their knowledge base and upbringing or the same person with a modern environment? I know everything Leibniz knew and a lot more besides. But I suspect that if the same individual grew up in a modern family environment similar to my own he would have accomplished a lot more than I have at the same age.
They wouldn't be the same person. Which is to say, the the whole matter is nonsense as the other replies in this thread made clear.
Sorry, I thought the notion was clear that one would be talking about same genetics but different environment. Illusion of transparency and all that. Explicit formulation: if one took a fertilized egg with Leibniz's genetic material and raised in an American middle class family with high emphasis on intellectual success, I'm pretty sure he would have by the time he got to my age have accomplished more than I have. Does that make the meaning clear?
Right, I understand. But Rational Wiki didn't have clones of Leibniz and Spinoza in mind. I'm just saying, the whole thing is goofy.
Wedrifid_2010 was not assigning a status ranking or even an evaluation of overall intellectual merit or potential. For that matter predicting expected voting patterns is a far different thing than assigning a ranking. People with excessive confidence in habitual thinking patterns that are wrong or obsolete will be downvoted into oblivion where the average person is not, even if the former is more intelligent or more intellectually impressive overall.
I also have little doubt that any of those three would be capable of recovering from their initial day or three of spiraling downvotes assuming they were willing to ignore their egos, do some heavy reading of the sequences and generally spend some time catching up on modern thought. But for as long as those individuals were writing similar material to that which identifies them they would be downvoted by lesswrong_2010. Possibly even by lesswrong_now too.
Yes. Upvotes come from original, insightful contributions. Descartes', Spinoza's, and Liebnitz's ideas are hundreds of years old and dated.
Not exactly the point - I think the claim is that they would be downvoted even if they were providing modern, original content ... which I would question, even then. We've had quite successful theist posters before, for example.
What would this even mean? Like, if they were transported forward in time and formed new beliefs on the basis of modern science? If they were cloned from DNA surviving in their bone marrow and then adopted by modern, secular families, took AP Calculus and learned to program?
What a goofy thing to even be talking about.
Goofier than a universe in which humans work but matches don't? Such ideas may be ill-formed, but that doesn't make them obviously ill-formed.
Sure...
ETA: I'm making fun of that wiki, not you.
I would downvote Descartes based on the quality of his thinking and argument even if it was modern bad thinking. At least I would if he persisted with the line after the first time or two he was corrected. I suppose this is roughly equivalent to what you are saying.