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shminux comments on On Leverage Research's plan for an optimal world - Less Wrong Discussion
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Skeptic: The idea that a magic new theory of psychology will unlock human potential and create a new political majority of model citizens is a secular messianism with nothing to back it up.
Leverage Researcher: Have you done the necessary reading? Our ideas are based on years of disjunctive lines of reasoning (see blog post #343, 562 and 617 on why you are wrong).
Skeptic: But you have never studied psychology, why would I trust your reasoning on the topic?
Leverage Researcher: That is magical thinking about prestige. Prestige is not a good indicator of quality. We have written a bunch of blog posts about rationality and cognitive biases.
Skeptic: That's great. But do you have any data that indicates that your ideas might actually be true?
Leverage Researcher: No. You're entitled to arguments, but not (that particular) proof (blog post #898).
Skeptic: Okay. But I asked experts and they disagree with your arguments.
Leverage Researcher: You will soon learn that your smart friends and experts are not remotely close to the rationality standards of Leverage Research, and you will no longer think it anywhere near as plausible that their differing opinion is because they know some incredible secret knowledge you don't.
Skeptic: Ummm, okay. To refine my estimations regarding your theory of psychology, what do you anticipate to see if your ideas are right, is there any possibility to update on evidence?
Leverage Researcher: No, I don't know enough about psychology to be more specific about my expectations. We will will know once we try it, please support us with money to do so.
Skeptic: I am not convinced.
Leverage Researcher: We call that motivated skepticism (see blog post #1355).
You would invoke this on someone asking for only specific evidence for your theory. It doesn't make sense to invoke it against someone asking for ANY evidence.
You have to take the outside view here. When an outsider asks if you have evidence that AI will go FOOM then they are not talking about arguments because convincing arguments are not enough in the opinion of a lot of people. That doesn't imply that it is wrong to act on arguments but that you are so far detached from the reality of how people think that you don't even get how ridiculous it sounds to an outsider that has not read the sequences. Which your comment and the 11 upvotes it got obviously show.
The way outsiders see it is that a lot of things can sound very convincing and yet be completely wrong and that only empirical evidence or mathematical proofs can corroborate extraordinary predictions like those made by SI.
The wrong way to approach those people is with snide remarks about their lack of rationality.
Your reply makes me think that you interpreted the 'you' in "You would invoke ..." as you -- XiXiDu, so it sounded like Incorrect was accusing you of being hypocritical. I think they might have just meant 'one', though, which would make their reply less of a snide remark and more of an (attempted) helpful correction.
I'm guessing you didn't read it that way because Incorrect was attempting to correct the way Leverage Researcher was using that argument, but you didn't identify with the Leverage Researcher character in your dialogue. So when Incorrect posted that as a reply to you, you thought they were saying that you yourself are just as bad as your character. I'm guessing about what's going on in two different people's brains though, so I could easily be wrong.
And, in particular, you would invoke it when the proof demanded is proof that should not exist even given that the theory is correct.