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drethelin comments on Article about LW: Faith, Hope, and Singularity: Entering the Matrix with New York’s Futurist Set - Less Wrong
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To be honest, as a long term supporter of SIAI, this sort of social experimentation seems like a serious political blunder. I personally have no problem with finding new (or not part of current western culture) techniques of... social interactions... if you believe it will make yourself and others 'better' for some definition of better.
But if you are serious in actually getting the world behind the movement, this is Bad. "Why should I believe you when you seem to be amoral?". I have more arguments on this matter but they are easy to generate anyway.
Another thought: one way to think of it might be that to achieve your goals personal sacrifice is necessary and applauded: 'I'm too busy saving the world to have a girlfriend.'. Perhaps there are better examples than that. Maybe it's time to get rid of couches?
Well, hiding things like this or stopping doing them is possibly even worse as far as image is concerned.
There's also the issue of demonstrating rationality. If they claim to that being rational will change your life and make you happier, but seem to live exactly like everyone else, then their claims hold less force than if being more rational makes you do seemingly weird things. There's arguments to be made that making an effort to tone down the weirdness is counter to the goal of promoting radically different means of thought than most people are used to.
I'm pro-poly, pro-cuddlepiles, and pro-cohabiting, I just think it's silly to do all these things and then act shocked when someone else points out that they are weird.
Also we don't want to forget the people this will attract. Being obviously happy works pretty well for Mormons, it might work well for Lesswrong. I dunno the value of the tradeoffs there but it's probably non-negligible, especially if you're interested in getting your group to skew younger.
Lets be honest about 'demonstrating rationality' here. If your goals are to have much more romping in the bedroom, they have done well here. However many of these techniques speak to me of cults, the ones with the leader getting all the brainwashed girls.
A much better sign of rationality is to have success in career, in money, in fame -- to be Successful. Not to just have more fun. Being successful hasn't been much demonstrated, though I am hopeful still.
The irony is that I recall a few years ago reading someone criticizing LWers to the effect that 'I would be more impressed by their so-called rationality if they were losing their virginity or getting laid more, than the stuff they focus on'. So, the NYCers are apparently doing just that and the response is this?
(Truly, damned if you do and damned if you don't.)
It would be nice if they had a list of awesome people who agree with Lesswrong or support it, instead of pointing to Thiel and Tallinn over and over.