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All of Alfred's Comments + Replies

Podcast: What's Wrong With LessWrong
Alfred30

But the genre also comes with a lot of strong beliefs that do not replicate. (Talking for 10 minutes with someone who reads Taleb's tweets regularly makes me want to scream.)

 

By this criterion, absolutely no one should be using LessWrong as a vehicle for learning. The Malcolm Gladwell reader you proposed might have been a comparable misinformation vehicle, in, say, 2011, but as of 2022 LessWrong is by a chasmic margin worse about this. It's debatable whether the average LessWrong user even reads what they're talking about anymore.

I can name a real-lif... (read more)

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8Viliam
I 100% agree. From my perspective, the root of the problem is that we do not have clear boundaries for {rationality, Less Wrong, this kind of stuff}. Because if I tell you "hey, from my perspective Aella is not a community leader, and if she posted such claims on LW they would get downvoted", on one hand, I sincerely mean it, and this was the reply I originally wanted to write; on the other hand, I would understand if that seemed like a motte-and-bailey definition of the rationalist community... whenever someone says something embarassing, we quickly redefine the rationalist community to mean "not this person, or at least not this specific embarassing statement". Especially considering that Aella is known to many people in the rationalist community, and occasionally posts on Less Wrong (not about MBTI though). I would more strongly object against associating LW with "quasi-mystical beliefs common to Alexander Kruel's sphere of influence". I mean, Alexander Kruel is like the #2 greatest hater of Less Wrong (the #1 place belongs to David Gerard), so it does not make any sense to me to blame his opinions on us. Scott uses the term "rationalist-adjacent" for people who hang out with actual LW members and absorb some of their memes, but also disagree with them in many ways. So, from my perspective, "rationalist proper" is what is written on Less Wrong (both the articles and the comments), plus most of what Eliezer or Scott write on other places; and "rationalist adjacent" is the comment section of ACX, discord, meetups, etc., including Aella (and also - although I hate to admit it - Alexander Kruel). I agree that the "rationalist adjacent" sphere is full of pseudoscientific bullshit. Not sure if strictly worse, but definitely not better than Malcolm Gladwell. :( I am not sure what to do about this. I am pretty sure that many other communities have a similar problem, too. You have a few "hardcore members", and then you have many people who enjoy hanging out with them
Podcast: What's Wrong With LessWrong
Alfred30

A bias is an error in weighting or proportion or emphasis. This differs from a fallacy, which is an error in reasoning specifically. Just to make up an example, an attentional bias would be a misapplication of attention -- the famous gorilla experiment -- but there would be no reasoning underlying this error per se. The ad hominem fallacy contains at least implicit reasoning about truth-valued claims.

Yes, it's possible that AI could be a concern for rationality. But AI is an object of rationality; in this sense, AI is like carbon emissions; it has room for... (read more)

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2Viliam
I guess the argument is that (a) a superhuman AI will probably be developed soon, (b) whether it is properly aligned with human values or not will have tremendous impact on the future of humanity, and (c) MIRI is one of the organizations that take this problem most seriously. If you agree with all three parts, then the funding makes sense. If you disagree with any one of them, it does not. At least from political perspective, it would be better to not talk about funding missions that require belief in several controversial statements to justify them. This is partially about plausibility of the claims, and partially about prevention vs reaction. Other EA charities are reactive: a problem already exists, we want to solve it. In case of malaria, it is not about curing the people who are already sick, but about preventing other people from getting sick... but anyway, people sick of malaria already exist. I was looking for some analogy, when humanity spent a lot of resources on prevention, but I actually don't remember any. Even recently with covid, a lot of people had to die first; perhaps at the beginning we could have prevented all this, but precisely because it did not happen yet, it didn't seem important.
6Viliam
I agree that LessWrong is not an exclusive source of most/all ideas found here. I think this means less than (I think) you are trying to suggest. For example, right now I am reading a textbook on set theory, and although I am pretty sure that 99-100% of the information there could also be found in other sources, that it not a sufficient reason to throw the textbook away. There are other possible advantages, such as being more accessible, putting all the information in the same place and showing the connection. Another important thing is what is not included. Like, if you show me a set of people who read "Thinking Fast and Slow" and "Predictably Irrational", I would expect that many of them have also enjoyed reading Malcolm Gladwell and Nassim Taleb, etc. You know, these things are a genre, and yes if you read a lot of this genre, you will be familiar with the good ideas in the LW Sequences. But the genre also comes with a lot of strong beliefs that do not replicate. (Talking for 10 minutes with someone who reads Taleb's tweets regularly makes me want to scream.) Then, there is the community. Reading the books is nice, but then I typically want to discuss them with someone. In extreme case, discuss the ways how the things we learned could be applied to improve our everyday lives. (And again, what is excluded is just as important as what is included.)
[+]Alfred-8-2
Alfred10

argon, please use a consistent name across all media. if I had known this Big Steve account was you, it would have saved me a lot of time.

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2Big Steve
Why should it matter who Big Steve is? Alfred, to be frank, your article is unclear and poorly written. Dagon, for example, thinks the political/non-political examples matter. They think that partly because your article is unclear. You should take more seriously their confusion as what-not-to-do in the future. Write with greater clarity. I think you write unclearly on semi-intentional purpose. Your communication strategy seems to be: write something unclear, then explain why the audience (in this case commenters) misunderstood you. That's how you responded to Christian, to Dagon, and to Big Steve. I think you are wrong about epistemic stalling, but you've only explained why I misunderstood what you said. That's a non-sequitur response on your part.  Consider your red/purple/fuschia example you gave to Dagon. What truthseeking activity is going on in the example? They are trying to figure out which color pops? That's a silly way to interpret their conversation. They're trying to decide which colors to wear - that's not a truthseeking activity. Also, after further thought, isn't calling out the identity issue about "argon" and "Big Steve" epistemic stalling? Here we are, you and I, engaged in a truthseeking activity & you offer an objection easily refuted given enough time. How isn't that epistemic stalling?
Alfred40

• courts of laws aren't primarily truthseeking practices. as in, courts fulfill a governmental function primarily and the truth is auxiliary. they can be truthseeking, but they aren't by design. the adversarial system for example is antithetical to truthseeking, because attorneys have no obligation to the whole truth. lying by omission is permitted.

• even if they were, what you're trying to get at - analogizing the role of demographic qualities to licensing credentials - doesn't hold here. a steelman of your argument would be that licensing means lawyers c... (read more)

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2ChristianKl
Court have a system for seeking truth when participants are adversarial and rules that have intention of producing truth under those conditions. While it's not the only goal that courts have truth finding is one of the major goals. In situations where participants are adversial it's useful to have a system that takes that into account. "Objection, this is hearsay" is a move that you can use in court to shut down a witness. It's a principle where people who don't have direct experience about whether something is true are not allowed to say what they want over it. It's similar in nature to the complaint that someone speaks about something where they lack certain direct experience because they are white.
Alfred10

there are categories of rebuttals and demands for evidence where the biggest issue in fulfilling them is time.

if you need a non political example, a common phenomenon of this kind is a document dump in legal practice. (but you shouldn't; we are going to engage politics all the time and you're going to need to be able to process politics rationally.)

misdirection is too broad and does not describe this precisely. stalling is the right focus, and seeing this as "dominance and emotional reactions" is missing the point or grossly misreading the situation. there... (read more)

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Alfred10

the burden of evidence doesn't change by who is "allowed" into a discussion. if I make a claim about the migration patterns of birds the evidence required for this claim is going to be the same regardless of who is hearing it. if I make a claim about the inequalities in society this doesn't change. they're both empirical claims and both have the same kinds of evidential requirements. if someone is trying to "maintain appropriate boundaries", whatever that means, making empirical claims is probably the opposite of that.

this idea of being "allowed in the dis... (read more)

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2Big Steve
I think your article is poorly written, and its unclarity is causing confusion between you, me, and the others. Discourse norms, some of which govern who is allowed in the conversation, are relevant. It is not a non sequitur. It is relevant, because you are making normative claims about discourse and what kinds of claims interlocutors are supposed to begin with. Specifically, one claim you are making is that interlocutors are supposed to begin with content-relevant, information-optimized claims. I've offered a contrary consideration. Some interlocutors rightly begin with permissibility claims about who is allowed into the conversation at all. I think this is where your poor writing runs us afoul. You don't sufficiently describe your one and only discursive example: "here's a common claim where it's just a matter of time until some piece of information dismisses it: 'you're just saying that because you're white.'" Are these interlocutors already passed the pre-discursive permissibility claims stage? Are they literally just now speaking, as though the objector overheard someone speaking, thought that the speaker was participating in something for which they have no permission, and is claiming a norm violation? It is not clear.  Now that I have read more of your comments, your intention is clearer. I think you are claiming that "Epistemic stalling" occurs only after pre-discursive permissibility claims, only during content-relevant critical discussion of knowledge and belief claims - only during active truth-seeking. Am I right this is what you are trying to say? If so, my objection is that the kinds of language used during active truth-seeking is often indistinguishable from the kinds of language used during pre-discursive considerations. "You aren't allowed in this conversation because you are white." That claim isn't epistemic stalling so long as it is made prior to active truth-seeking. So, whether a claim is epistemic stalling depends on the stage of in disc
1ChristianKl
This would imply that a court of law that has specific rules about who is allowed to make what claims and has specific kinds of burdens of evidence isn't a truth seeking enterprise.  The quality of the rules of discourse in a court of law are better then those rules of discourse that disallow non-whites from voicing certain opinions but in both cases, participants in the discourse believe that arguments have to follow certain standards.
Alfred10

people who procrastinate, including me and probably you and most people reading this, do so in a semi-intentional state where they're half-aware and might be more aware if prompted but can easily suppress awareness further too. intention is not binary. at the point of performance, procrastinators (so, all of us) aren't actively thinking "I'm procrastinating" nor are they aware that they're explicitly making choices to do that. but, if a person interrupts them to let them know they're doing that, their consciousness might be shaken enough to stop the behavi... (read more)

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Alfred10

it's still stalling, because they should start with the argument that would best rebut the same claim by someone who was "allowed in the discourse." this modification is trivial and doesn't make epistemic stalling a non-thing, i.e. people obviously do in fact do this.

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1Big Steve
To follow-up, you'll need to justify that "they should start the argument with what would best rebut the same claim by someone who was 'allowed in the discourse'". That's a normative claim that your original post doesn't justify. It likely can be justified, but you haven't yet done that.  Also, their starting with the claim that would be the best rebuttal is an act of allowing you into the discourse. If they believe you aren't allowed in the discourse, they won't let you in. So, your justification of the normative claim needs to remain sensitive to their sincerely held beliefs about the relevant discursive norms.  They aren't trying to stall for time. They are trying to maintain appropriate boundaries.
Compartmentalization as a passive phenomenon
Alfred00

Your "wrong but not obviously and completely wrong" line made me think that the "obviously and completely" part is what makes people who are well-versed in a subject demand that everyone should know [knowledge from subject] when they hear someone express obvious-and-complete ignorance or obvious-and-complete wrongness in/of said subject. I've witnessed this a few times, and usually the thought process is something like "wow, it's unfathomable that someone should express such ignorance of something that is so obvious to me. There sh... (read more)

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