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Bugmaster comments on The Singularity Institute's Arrogance Problem - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (307)
Yes, I understood what you meant; my comment was about style, not substance.
Most people (myself included, to some non-trivial degree) view publication in academic journals as a very strong test of one's ideas. Once you publish your paper (or so the belief goes), the best scholars in the field will do their best to pick it apart, looking for weaknesses that you might have missed. Until that happens, you can't really be sure whether your ideas are correct.
Thus, by saying "it would be a waste of Eliezer's time to publish papers", what you appear to be saying is, "we already know that Eliezer is right about everything". And by combining this statement with saying that Eliezer's time is very valuable because he's reducing x-risk, you appear to be saying that either the other academics don't care about x-risk (in which case they're clearly ignorant or stupid), or that they would be unable to recognize Eliezer's x-risk-reducing ideas as being correct. Hence, my comment above.
Again, I am merely commenting on the appearance of your post, as it could be perceived by someone with an "outside view". I realize that you did not mean to imply these things.
That really isn't what Luke appears to be saying. It would be fairer to say "a particularly aggressive reader could twist this so that it means..."
It may sometimes be worth optimising speech such that it is hard to even willfully misinterpret what you say (or interpret based on an already particularly high prior for 'statement will be arrogant') but this is a different consideration to trying not to (unintentionally) appear arrogant to a neutral audience.
For what it is worth, I had an almost identical reaction when reading the statement.
Fair enough; it's quite possible that my interpretation was too aggressive.
It's the right place for erring on the side of aggressive interpretation. We've been encouraged (and primed) to do so!