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commonlaw comments on Eliezer's Sequences and Mainstream Academia - Less Wrong
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Comments (153)
All readers have a Greasemonkey script that rips all the qualifying words out of a post. This is a natural fact of writing and reading.
Not the post you wrote - the post that the long-time LWer who Twittered "Eliezer's Yudkowsky's Sequences are mostly not original" read. The actual real-world consequences of a post like this when people actually read it are what bothers me, and it does feel frustrating because those consequences seem very predictable - like you're living in an authorial should-universe. Of course somebody's going to read that post and think "Eliezer Yudkowsky's Sequences are mostly not original"! Of course that's going to be the consequence of writing it! And maybe it's just because I was reading it instead of writing it myself, without having all of your intentions so prominently in my mind, but I don't see why on Earth you'd expect any other message to come across than that. A few qualifying words don't have the kind of power it takes to stop that from happening!
Only a single conclusion is possible: LukeProg is a TRAITOR!
I can understand why this would be negatively received by some---it is clearly hyperbole with a degree of silliness involved. That said---and possibly coincidentally---there is a serious point here. In fact it is the most salient point I noticed when reading the post and initial responses.
In most social hierarchies this post would be seen as a betrayal. An unusually overt and public political move against Eliezer. Not necessarily treason, betrayal of the tribe, it is a move against a rival. Of course it would certainly be in the interest of the targeted rival to try to portray the move as treason (or heresy, or whatever other kind of betrayal of the tribe rather than mere personal conflict.)
The above consideration is why I initially expected Eliezer to agree to a larger extent than he did (which evidently wasn't very much!) Before making public statements of a highly status sensitive nature regarding an ally the typical political actor will make sure they aren't offending them---they don't take the small risk establishing an active rivalry unless they are certain the payoffs are worth it.
This (definitely!) isn't to say that any of the above applies to this situation. Rationalists are weird and in particular can have an unusual relationship between their intellectual and political expression. ie. They sometimes go around saying what they think.
The thought that Luke was trying to sabotage my position, consciously or unconsciously, honestly never crossed my mind until I read this comment. Having now considered the hypothesis rather briefly, I assign it a rather low probability. Luke's not like that.
It is perhaps worth noting that wedrifid didn't say anything about motives (conscious or otherwise).
Whether I believe someone is trying to sabotage my position (consciously or unconsciously) is a different question from whether I believe they are making a move against me in a shared social hierarchy. (Although each is evidence for the other, of course.)