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WalterL comments on Open Thread, Aug. 22 - 28, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: polymathwannabe 22 August 2016 04:24PM

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Comment author: WalterL 25 August 2016 08:27:21PM -2 points [-]

Saw the site mentioned on Breibart:

Link: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/an-establishment-conservatives-guide-to-the-alt-right/

Money Quote:

...Elsewhere on the internet, another fearsomely intelligent group of thinkers prepared to assault the secular religions of the establishment: the neoreactionaries, also known as #NRx.

Neoreactionaries appeared quite by accident, growing from debates on LessWrong.com, a community blog set up by Silicon Valley machine intelligence researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky. The purpose of the blog was to explore ways to apply the latest research on cognitive science to overcome human bias, including bias in political thought and philosophy.

LessWrong urged its community members to think like machines rather than humans. Contributors were encouraged to strip away self-censorship, concern for one’s social standing, concern for other people’s feelings, and any other inhibitors to rational thought. It’s not hard to see how a group of heretical, piety-destroying thinkers emerged from this environment — nor how their rational approach might clash with the feelings-first mentality of much contemporary journalism and even academic writing.

Led by philosopher Nick Land and computer scientist Curtis Yarvin, this group began a ..."

I wasn't around back in the day, but this is nonsense, right? Nrx didn't start on lesswrong, yeah?

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 25 August 2016 09:32:45PM 2 points [-]

Moldbug and Yudkowsky have been disagreeing with each other basically ever since their blogs have even existed.

Comment author: Vaniver 25 August 2016 09:43:18PM 1 point [-]

I seem to recall a Yudkowsky anti-NRx comment on Facebook a year or two ago, but does anyone recall / have a link to an earlier disagreement on Yudkowsky's part?

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 26 August 2016 05:18:19AM 5 points [-]

On Moldbug from 2012.

Comment author: WalterL 26 August 2016 04:40:35PM 1 point [-]

Aw come on guys. Negative karma for literally pointing out a news site? What does that even mean?

Comment author: WalterL 26 August 2016 07:54:42PM 0 points [-]

Touche.

Comment author: Dagon 25 August 2016 08:45:00PM -1 points [-]

I was around back in the day, and can confirm that this is nonsense. NRX evolved separtely. There was a period where it was of interest and explored by a number of LW contributors, but I don't think any of the thought leaders of either group were significantly influential to the other.

There is some philosophical overlap in terms of truth-seeking and attempted distinction between universal truths and current social equilibria, but neither one caused nor grew from the other.

Comment author: ignoranceprior 26 August 2016 04:38:33AM *  2 points [-]

I don't know whether you've heard of it, but someone wrote an ebook called "Neoreaction a Basilisk" that claims Eliezer Yudkowsky was an important influence on Mencius Moldbug and Nick Land. There was a lot of talk about it on the tumblr LW diaspora a few months back.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 25 August 2016 09:42:43PM 1 point [-]

I don't think any of the thought leaders of either group were significantly influential to the other.

Yvain did say that he was influenced by Moldbug.

Comment author: philh 26 August 2016 11:51:54AM 3 points [-]

I feel it's important to note that he was talking about writing styles, not philosophy.

Comment author: ChristianKl 27 August 2016 08:45:17PM 0 points [-]

I feel it's important to note that he was talking about writing styles, not philosophy.

Do you think how one reasons in writing about a subject has nothing todo with philosophy?

Comment author: Baughn 28 August 2016 02:08:01PM 0 points [-]

When it comes to writing styles? Absolutely. There's a ton of skills involved, and deciding exactly which thoughts you want to convey is only a small part of it.

Comment author: philh 30 August 2016 09:12:32AM -1 points [-]

I don't think I need to make a claim that strong.

I think that "Yvain's writing style was significantly influenced by Moldbug" is an importantly different claim to "Yvain's philosophy was significantly influenced by Moldbug"; the second claim is the one under discussion; and if someone wants to turn the first into the second, the burden of proof is on them.

Comment author: Elo 25 August 2016 11:00:45PM -2 points [-]

think like machines rather than humans

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