Open thread, July 28 - August 3, 2014

polymathwannabe

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one.

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

I'm fairly sure this comment was not exactly intended as a compliment, but I can think of worse insults than having my writing put in the same category as Nick Bostrom. As the author of the first of these parables, even I recognize that these two stories differ very significantly in quality

The Blue and Green Martians parable was an attempt to discuss a question of ethics that is important to many members of this community, and which it is almost impossible to discuss elsewhere. The decision to use an analogy was an attempt to minimize mindkill. This did not succeed. However, I am fairly sure that if I had chosen not to use an analogy, the resulting flamewar would have been immense. This probably means that there are certain topics we just can't discuss, which feels distinctly suboptimal, but I'm not sure I have a better solution.

What would you think of the following solution?

Announce 'I would like to have conversations about the controversial topic Pick-up Artistry. Because talking about it publicly can result in problems, If you want to talk with me about that topic, please send me a message stating your position on the topic.'

By keeping it open like that and not stating your own position, it seems to be about as not prone to mindkill as you could get.

The downside is, private conversations don't have as much bounce effects. For instance in the prior mentioned thread, Viliam_Bur e... (read more)

8Punoxysm12y

Well I don't like the dragon parable either. It's overlong, a bit condescending and ignores the core problem that anti-aging research has done a pretty poor job of showing concrete achievements, even if it's right that it's under-prioritized. I was not a fan of yours exactly because I think the parable elides the most important parts of the actual topic. Even if a direct discussion would be flamey, it's not better to discuss a poor proxy. I'm not trying to pick on you, I just think you tried to define the problem with some premises that were well worth dispute. There are all sorts of other bad analogies out there though: "If canada launched missiles at the US, how would it respond?", even though the US hasn't turned Canada into a prison-state over the course of 50 years, is one on the news a lot right now. Parables about the danger of nuclear weapons that ignore the fact that this danger was successfully handled (there was something on here using it as an analogy for AI). Also, when parables are kind-of-but-not-really trying to be coy about what they're actually about is a bit annoying, leading to stilted writing (but that's the least of my issues). EY also has a lot of dubious parables, but tackling those is a subject for a bigger post. And of course there's the whole genre of parables where two fictional interlocutors are arguing, the strawman 'loses' the argument, and that's supposed to convince us of something. I think LW manages to avoid overt versions of this. In the realm of politics (both Red/Blue and further-from-mainstream) people often apply "argument by utopia", which suffers similar issues in that it attempts to prematurely define convenient facts and use a narrative to elide gritty, worthwhile details of an issue.