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Lumifer comments on Open Thread March 21 - March 27, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
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In the last few days, a few people have newly joined LW, posting only in a welcome thread and in articles about Gleb_Tsipursky's "Intentional Insights" work. Their comments have been very enthusiastic about II.
Now here's the thing. Intentional Insights is based in the US. Everyone on its leadership team (I think) and advisory board is in the US. Most of its activity, so far as I can see, is focused on promoting ... whatever exactly II promotes ... in US-based media like the Huffington Post. But it just happens that two of these people are a brother and sister (I think) from Nigeria, and a chap from the Philippines. The last person I recall turning up on LW and gushing about how great II is and how wonderful GT's articles are was also from the Philippines. Isn't that odd?
(For the avoidance of doubt, of course there's nothing in any way wrong about being from Nigeria or the Philippines. I'm just asking: isn't this a rather improbable sequence of events?)
Now, Gleb has an answer, sort of:
It's not clear what range of organizations Gleb is referring to, but the specific one he names (AAI) is indeed an international organization -- but I don't see any sign that it's more active in (say) Nigeria than in the US. And none of these II fans who have turned up on Less Wrong has said anything about hearing of either LW or II through any other organization.
I think there is another obvious explanation, which is that these people are being paid to publicize II, and that the reason why the II-fans we see on LW come disproportionately from developing countries is that it's much cheaper to buy publicity from people in developing countries than from people in, say, the US or Western Europe.
Am I too paranoid?
... Oh, look. Twitter feed of LW user Sarginlove. The description on the Twitter account says "works for Intentional Insight". Take a look at Sarginlove's comments and tell me this isn't a deliberate attempt to look like someone not affiliated with II who's just seen their material and been impressed by it.
I don't know quite what Gleb is actually trying to do with II, but I think this goes beyond "weird and creepy" (the usual complaint on LW hitherto, I think) to "actively deceptive".
Sarginlove, that is, Sargin Rukevwe, works as a "virtual assistant". Basically you hire him to do whatever and in this case he seems to have been hired to promote InIn.
It's interesting that his page says he graduated from the Polytechnic in 2013, but his introductory post here says he is a student at that school.
Let me repeat the observation I've made before -- Gleb_Tsipursky is a very clear case of cargo-cult behaviour. He has no clue about marketing, but he's been told which motions to make so that the planes will come and he's making them very earnestly. One of these motions is "native" (or covert) promotion which is designed to look like spontaneous endorsement -- and so he hires a lad from Lagos to post cringeworthy stuff here and everywhere...
P.S. Hey, look, Sarginlove has a Google+ account and his entire post history consists of -- drumroll, please! -- InIn reposts.
I guess he was hired on Dec 3, 2015, amiright?
He's a witch. Burn him already, on balance of probabilities.
Except, do we want to censor commercial speech per se. If people are being paid to say interesting things, why not? If people are talking rubbish and spamming, shouldn't we have a mechanism for silencing them irrespective of whether they're getting money?
I'm ranting insanely about the thyroid-bee in my empiricist-bonnet, totally for free! Why not ban me?
If someone turns up saying "I've just discovered X and I love it", the information I gain from that is quite different in the cases (1) where they really have just discovered X and love it and (2) where they're saying it because someone paid them to.
Indeed, the fact that these people are presumably being paid isn't the point. The fact that they are promoting something dishonestly is the point. The fact that they're being paid is relevant only as evidence that their promotion is dishonest.
Because your ranting is not in fact particularly insane, and because your participation in the LW community is not confined to ranting about hypothyroidism.
If you talked about literally nothing else, and if it transpired that you're only promoting your theory because someone paid you to drum up sales for thyroid hormone supplements, then you'd probably be contributing nothing of value. (Whether banning you would be a good response is a different question.) I mean, it might turn out that actually what you're saying about thyroid hormones is right (or at least enlightening) even though you were saying it on account of being paid, but the odds wouldn't be good.
What if I was so convinced I was right that I started a 'Rational Thyroid Treatment Corporation'? (Just teasing now, sorry)
And actually there wouldn't be any point, since the bloody stuff is cheap as chips. I think that might be the problem. There's never been anyone to fight its corner for it.
Which is verging on conspiracy theory. Except that there's no conspiracy, just perverse incentives.
Which is what we say when we want to say 'conspiracy theory'.
I used to know some Socialist Workers. And one of them used to refer to people as 'lumpen'. One day I asked her if that was what Socialist Workers said when they meant 'common', and she went red and said 'yes' in a very small voice.
Which increased my respect for her a lot. Unfortunately she ruined it all about a month later when at the end of an argument about the correct method of determining wage levels for firemen she completely lost it with the immortal words 'Under Socialism there WOULDN'T BE FIRES'.
If you would then hire Nigerians to promote it on LW, we would have a problem.
Nigerians! How could RTTC afford Nigerians? I paid Tammy Lowe £50 for what appears to be a three year supply of magic thyroid panacea, including several hours of her time and mine. And if I did start making my own and then spend the money to promote it properly, I'd just get undercut. There is no honour in a perfectly competitive market.
ROFL...
To quote Karl Marx on who constitutes lumpenproletariat:
The issue is not with commercial speech. The issue is with misrepresentation and deception.