After Twitter permanently suspended Donald Trump’s Twitter account, some high-profile rationalists and rationalist-adjacent folks came out strongly against the decision. Among those who seem strongly opposed: Eliezer Yudkowsky, Kevin Simler, Naval Ravikant, and Balaji Srinivasan. This post is about why I think they’re wrong. 1. Does the law allow Twitter...
[Epistemic Status: I suspect that this is at least partially wrong. But I don’t know why yet, and so I figured I’d write it up and let people tell me. First post on Less Wrong, for what that’s worth.] First thesis: IQ is more akin to a composite measure of...
If there is not a "state actor," then the First Amendment does not apply.
I'm not a First-Amendment scholar. There is literature and case law on this subject, but I wouldn't be able to summarize it well. That said, I'm fairly certain that government officials pressuring private platforms to remove certain content would not implicate the First Amendment. But it is a closer call than the Trump situation.
And, to be clear, I'm not in favor of all forms of platform censorship. I'm simply defending this instance of banning Trump from Twitter.
Without question, this is a hard question. Too many rationalists assume it is easy.
This post once had 11 Karma and then went down to 4, so clearly this is not a popular take among rationalists.
I feel as if too many rationalists struggle to see past the "but what about the slippery slope?" argument and fail to see the evil that's right in front of them.
This strikes me as a weak slippery slope argument. There is no "homogeneity of acceptable discourse" on Twitter. Even after Trump's ban, far-right wing politicians such as Hawley and Boebart still use the platform. He wasn't removed for ideological reasons. He was banned because he was actively inciting a violent insurrection and aspired to continue to incite such an insurrection.
Fair point re: #2, but the ultimate point is unchanged. For the same reasons that Less Wrong and SSC engage in content moderation, Twitter does the same. Banning Trump, on balance, will not be harmful.
Point 7 is a response to Yudkowsky retweeting on Jan 8 Ryan Lackey's post that said:
"If you wanted to increase the odds of an actual civil war in the next decade, pushing 10-50 mm people into a somewhat segregated communications system actively forced to evolve to resist aggressive censorship is an important first step."
After Twitter permanently suspended Donald Trump’s Twitter account, some high-profile rationalists and rationalist-adjacent folks came out strongly against the decision. Among those who seem strongly opposed: Eliezer Yudkowsky, Kevin Simler, Naval Ravikant, and Balaji Srinivasan.
This post is about why I think they’re wrong.
1. Does the law allow Twitter to do this?
Yes. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives platforms broad discretion to edit or not edit user generated content as they see fit. Dozens of courts have held that this includes the ability to permanently ban users or suspend their accounts, for any reason or no reason. For more background on this, please read Professor Eric Goldman’s excellent Law and Technology... (read 1373 more words →)
If you take a pair of variables which are correlated r>=0.25, you have, pretty much by definition, found that one >variable 'matters' more than any other single variable can, simply because it has explained/predicted the majority of >the variance (sqrt(0.25)=0.5). Another variable can't explain more of the variance.
I agree that g is probably more predictive of success than any other single variable. Cumulatively, other factors may matter more. But it is likely true that no one factor matters more. But I think that debate is tangential to the original post.
The original post had two points.
The “first thesis” was to argue that intelligence is more like athleticism than height.
The “second thesis”... (read 830 more words →)
I suppose that's a fair criticism. But you have cherry picked these examples. In my defense, I also reference SSC and a 448-page book by Stephen Jay Gould on IQ, which is entirely about the history of psychometrics.
It's an area of interest, not necessarily an area of expertise. I wrote a post to get feedback and improve my understanding of the topic. I have a richer understanding of the issue than I had two days ago. And so I accomplished what I aspired to do.
First of all, I very much enjoy your blog and writing in general. So thank you for commenting.
... (read more)The existence of successful scientists or chess players whose rank-percentile in IQ is less than their rank-percentile in >scientific accomplishment or chess playing does not shed any light on what the neurological basis of IQ, as this is a general >phenomenon of regression to the mean and the extreme order statistics of two variables which are correlated rhttp://lesswrong.com/lw/km6/why_the_tails_come_apart/ I'm not sure how this is relevant to any discussions of what >neurological features IQ is caused by or what the causal nature of IQ is - but looking at the extremes doesn't tell us >anything I
Wrong. For example, Raven's Progressive Matrices only have one category.
Ok. Fair point. But nearly all intelligence tests use a variety sub-tests. And I think the consensus among psychometricians is that more tests provide a better measure of intelligence.
My point isn't that IQ is stupid. My goal is to explore its boundaries and limitations.
[Epistemic Status: I suspect that this is at least partially wrong. But I don’t know why yet, and so I figured I’d write it up and let people tell me. First post on Less Wrong, for what that’s worth.]
First thesis: IQ is more akin to a composite measure of performance such as the decathlon than it is to a single characteristic such as height or speed.
Second thesis: When looking at extraordinary performance in any specific field, IQ will usually be highly correlated with success, but it will not fully explain or predict top-end performance, because extraordinary performance in a specific field is a result of extraordinary talent in a sub-category of intelligence... (read 1878 more words →)
Again, Trump wasn't banned for his ideas. He was banned for actively inciting violence and for a long history of poisoning the well.
Neither of us know what Twitter's "real" motivations were. Heck, the executives of Twitter might not know what their real motivations were.
The real question is whether it is proper for a major media platform to remove a major political figure for ostensibly breaking the code of conduct associated with the platform and for actively engaging in incitement to violence. That activity ought not to be protected by free speech or society as a whole.