wedrifid comments on Help Fund Lukeprog at SIAI - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 August 2011 07:16AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (276)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: jsalvatier 24 August 2011 04:25:32PM *  21 points [-]

I'm not talking about 'covering fire'. If your goal is to win an argument or appear righteous, then your strategy is alright. If your goal is to actually get SIAI to change their behavior, then your language is hurting your cause. You want to make it as easy as possible for them to change their behavior, and it's psychologically much easier to do something because an ally asks than because an adversary asks.

You have seen evidence: both Guy (link) and I (link) posted 'lessons learned' for the minicamp. You are right to say this is not especially strong evidence, but it is evidence. I think it would have been good to video tape some of the sessions and post them and post the exit surveys (they took testimonials too).

Comment author: wedrifid 26 August 2011 06:59:51AM 2 points [-]

If your goal is to win an argument or appear righteous, then your strategy is alright.

No, it clearly isn't. He left himself wide open to this sort of attack.

More fundamentally he justified and explained himself. He did it reasonably well and a good justification can work but it is almost never the optimal strategy.