All of ragintumbleweed's Comments + Replies

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.
 

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."

 

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 o... (read more)

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.

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 discus

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.

First of all, thank you, 9eB1. This is exactly the kind of a charitable, informed, and thoughtful response I was hoping for. I appreciate your feedback. Also, you clearly know more about psychometrics than I do, so I will tread carefully in response.

The tallest player to ever play in the NBA was Gheorghe Mureșan, who was 7'7". He was not very good. Manute Bol was >almost as tall and he was good but not great. By contrast, the best basketball player of all time was 6'6" [citation needed]. In >fact, perhaps an athletic quotient would be bet

Understood. I didn't articulate this well. My point was merely to say that soccer, basketball, and other sports have arbitrary and sport-specific constraints, whereas the decathlon was explicitly constructed to test a battery of physical abilities. And perhaps that the composite well-rounded athlete is usually less interesting than someone who is a freak in a specific discipline.

"Figure 2 provides a basis for anticipating the unique value spatial ability might contribute to understanding intellectually talented youth. In the late 1970s, because of his interest in identifying and developing scientific talent—and knowing that by utilizing exclusively a general ability measure, Terman assessed and missed two Nobel Laurates (viz., Luis Alvarez and William Shockley, see Shurkin, 1992) Stanley gave a group of 563 SMPY participants tests of spatial ability designed for high school seniors."

"Clearly, the creative outcomes ... (read more)

Forgive me, as I am brand new to LW. Where is it defined that an epistemic rationalist can't seek epistemic rationality as a means of living a good life (or for some other reason) rather than as a terminal goal? Is there an Académie française of rationalists that takes away your card if you use ER as a means to an end?

I'm working off this quote from EY as my definition of ER. This definition seems silent on the means-end question.

Epistemic rationality: believing, and updating on evidence, so as to systematically improve the correspondence between your

You are pretty much saying that the knowledge can sometimes be instrumentally useful. But that does not show epistemic rationality is about winning..

What I'm saying is that all things being equal, individuals, firms, and governments with high ER will outperform those with lower ER. That strikes me as both important and central to why ER matters.

I believe you seem to be saying high ER or having beliefs that correspond to reality is valuable for its own sake. That Truth matters for its own sake. I agree, but that's not the only reason it's valuable.

In yo... (read more)

Epistemic rationality isn’t about winning?

Demonstrated, context-appropriate epistemic rationality is incredibly valuable and should lead to higher status and -- to the extent that I understand Less-Wrong jargon --“winning.”

Think about markets: If you have accurate and non-consensus opinions about the values of assets or asset classes, you should be able to acquire great wealth. In that vein, there are plenty of rationalists who apply epistemic rationality to market opinions and do very well for themselves. Think Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates,... (read more)

Been lurking for a while and figured I’d go ahead and jump into the mix.

I studied philosophy (and foreign languages) in undergrad. Went to Duke for law school. Worked at one of the biggest and most hardcore law firms in the world for six years, and now I run my own shop with another lawyer in Denver. We focus on startups and tech legal work.

I only recently discovered LW through Kevin Simler’s blog Melting Asphalt and Slate Star Codex. Figured I’d come here to see if it was worthwhile to participate. I’m working my way through the Sequences.

I’m in the pro... (read more)