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Bakkot comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012) - Less Wrong
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Comments (1430)
I'd hope that LessWrong is a community in which having in the past been willing to support controversial opinions would increase your repute, not decrease it. If we always worry about our reputation when having discussions about possibly controversial topics, we're not going to have much discussion at all.
Regardless, the fantastic thing about the internet is that handles are disposable.
We don't mind. You aren't actually going to kill babies and you aren't able to make it legal either (ie. "mostly harmless"). Just don't count too much on your anonymity! Assume that everything you say on the internet will come back to haunt you in the future - when trying to get a job, for example. Or when you are unjustly accused of murder in Italy.
EDIT: Pardon me, when I say "we" don't mind I am speaking for myself and guessing at an overall consensus. I suspect there are one or two who do mind - but that's ok and I consider it their problem.
Fair enough. But my paranoia's only going to go so far; if the choice is a policy of speaking up in relatively accepting communities with no obvious bearing on future life prospects or a policy of remaining silent, I'll take the first one.
That only has a certainty approaching 1 if we all went and forgot about CEV and related prospects.
Really? What's your estimate of the probability that Bakkot's inclusion in a CEV-calculating-algorythm's target mind-space will make it more likely for the resulting CEV to tolerate infanticide?
Pretty negligible, but still orders of magnitude above Bakkot just altering society to tolerate infanticide on his own.
I would tend to agree for what it's worth.
I think I'm not understanding you.
Call P1 the probability that Bakkot's inclusion in a CEV-calculating-algorythm's target mind-space will make it more likely for the resulting CEV to tolerate infanticide. Call P2 the probability that Bakkot isn't capable of making infanticide legal, disregarding P1.
You seem to be saying P1 approximately equals 0 (which is what I understand "negligible" to mean), and P2 approximately equals 1, and that P2-P1 does not approximately equal 1.
I don't see how all three of those can be true at the same time.
Edit: if the downvotes are meant to indicate I'm wrong, I'd love a correction as well. OTOH, if they're just meant to indicate the desire for fewer comments like these, that's fine.
Where do you get "P2 approximately equals 1"?
Multiheaded said "That only has a certainty approaching 1 if we all went and forgot about CEV and related prospects."
I understand "that" to refer to "bakkot isn't able to make make infanticide legal".
I conclude that the probability that Bakkot isn't capable of making infanticide legal, if we forget about CEV and related prospects, is approximately 1.
P2 is the probability that Bakkot isn't capable of making infanticide legal, if we disregard the probability that Bakkot's inclusion in a CEV-calculating-algorythm's target mind-space will make it more likely for the resulting CEV to tolerate infanticide.
I conclude that P2 is approximately 1.
Giving respect to controversy for the sake of controversy is just inviting more trolling and flamewars.
I have respect for true ideas, whether they are outmoded or fashionable or before their time. I don't care whether an idea is original or creative or daring or shocking or boring, I want to know if it's sound.
The fact that you seem to expect increased respect because of controversial opinions makes me think that you when you wrote about your support for infanticide, you were motivated more by the fact that many people disagreed with you, than by the fact that it's actually a good idea that would make the world a better place.
You remind me of Hanson (well, Doherty actually) on Libertarian Purity Duels
This is not what I expect. I expect increased respect for having thought through ideas. I also expect that most people have come to conclusions differing from the LW mainstream on some ideas, and expect - or at least hope - that a willingness to express this is something respected.
The reason I chose to write about infanticide, as opposed to my position of Newcomb's paradox (one-box) - or more illustratively my position on the general shape of planet Earth (roughly a sphere), is that my position on infanticide is controversial and therefore more likely to prompt interesting discussion, whereas my positions on Newcomb's paradox or the shape of planet Earth are not. So yes, the reason I chose to write about infanticide was that many people disagreed with me, and in fact I was explicit about that in my original post. This does not mean I hold this position to be deliberately contrarian, and implying otherwise is insulting.
Let's not go off on that tangent in here, but two-boxing is hardly uncontroversial on LW: lots of one-boxers here, including Yudkowsky. I'm one too. Also, didn't you say you "want to win"?
Good catch. Not what I meant; fixed.
Not always. For any random Lesswrongian with a contrarian position you're nearly sure to find a Lesswrongian with a meta-contrarian one.
Also, notice that your signaling now is so bad from a baseline human standpoint that people's sociopath/Wrong Wiring alarms are going off, or would go off if there's more of such signaling. I think that my alarm's just kinda sensitive* because I had it triggered by and calibrated on myself many times.
*(Alas, this could also be evidence that along the line I subconsciously tweaked this bit of my software to get more excuses for playing inquisitor with strangers)
Perhaps I'll pick another handle for use outside of this thread, then.
FWIW, I disagree with you but you don't set off my "sociopath alarm". I think you and Multiheaded may not be able to have a normal conversation with each other, but each of you seems to get along fine with the rest of LW.
If it helps, I can pretty much envision what's needed for such a conversation, and understand full well that the reasons it's not actually happening are all in myself and not in Bakkot. But I don't have the motivation to modify myself that specific way. On the other hand, it might come along naturally if I just improve in all areas of communication.
Heck, I might be speaking in Runglish. Bed tiem.
I'm curious: did you?
Yes, but on consideration I think I'm just going to switch back to this one.
If it helps, my opinion of you has been raised by this thread, rather than lowered. I think very few LWians actually think less of you for this discussion, but that could just be me projecting typical mind fallacy.
That's lumping a whole lot of things together. I'd gladly hire Bakkot if I was running pretty much any kind of IT business. I'd enjoy some kinds of debate with him. I'd be interested in playing an online game with him. I probably wouldn't share a beer. I definitely would participate in a smear campaign if he was running for public office.