I’m not sure either of the quotes you cited by Eliezer require or suggest ridiculous overconfidence.
If I’ve seen some photos of a tiger in town, and I know a bunch of people in town who got eaten by an animal, and we’ve all seen some apparent tiger-prints near where people got eaten, I may well say “it’s obvious there is a tiger in town eating people.” If people used to think it was a bear, but that belief was formed based on priors when we didn’t yet have any hard evidence about the tiger, I may be frustrated with people who haven’t yet updated. I may say “The only question is how quickly people’s views shift from bear to tiger. Those who haven’t already shifted seem like they are systematically slow on the draw and we should learn from their mistakes.” I don’t think any of those statements imply I think there’s a 99.9% chance that it’s a tiger. It’s more a statement rejecting the reasons why people think there is a bear, and disagreeing with those reasons, and expecting their views to predictably change over time. But I could say all that while still acknowledging some chance that the tiger is a hoax, that there is a new species of animal that’s kind of like a tiger, that the animal we saw in photos is different from the one that’s eating people, or whatever else. The exact smallness of the probability of “actually it wasn’t the tiger after all” is not central to my claim that it’s obvious or that people will come around.
I don’t think it’s central to this point, but I think 99% is a defensible estimate for many-worlds. I would probably go somewhat lower but certainly wouldn’t run victory laps about that or treat it as damning of someone’s character. The above is mostly a bad analogy explaining why I think it’s pretty reasonable to say things like Eliezer did even if your all-things-considered confidence was 99% or even lower.
To get a sense for what Eliezer finds frustrating and intends to critique, you can read If many-worlds had come first (which I find quite obnoxious). I think to the extent that he’s wrong it’s generally by mischaracterizing the alternative position and being obnoxious about it (e.g. misunderstanding the extent to which collapse is proposed as ontologically fundamental rather than an expression of agnosticism or a framework for talking about experiments, and by slightly misunderstanding what “ontologically fundamental collapse” would actually mean). I don’t think it has much to do with overconfidence directly, or speaks to the quality of Eliezer’s reasoning about the physical world, though I think it is a bad recurring theme in Eliezer’s reasoning about and relationships with other humans. And in fairness I do think there are a lot of people who probably deserve Eliezer’s frustration on this point (e.g. who talk about how collapse is an important and poorly-understood phenomenon rather than most likely just being the most boring thing) though I mostly haven’t talked with them and I think they are systematically more mediocre physicists.
I’m not sure either of the quotes you cited by Eliezer require or suggest ridiculous overconfidence.
If I’ve seen some photos of a tiger in town, and I know a bunch of people in town who got eaten by an animal, and we’ve all seen some apparent tiger-prints near where people got eaten, I may well say “it’s obvious there is a tiger in town eating people.” If people used to think it was a bear, but that belief was formed based on priors when we didn’t yet have any hard evidence about the tiger, I may be frustrated with people who haven’t yet updated. I may say “The only question is how quickly people’s views shift from bear to tiger. Those who haven’t already shifted seem like they are systematically slow on the draw and we should learn from their mistakes.” I don’t think any of those statements imply I think there’s a 99.9% chance that it’s a tiger. It’s more a statement rejecting the reasons why people think there is a bear, and disagreeing with those reasons, and expecting their views to predictably change over time. But I could say all that while still acknowledging some chance that the tiger is a hoax, that there is a new species of animal that’s kind of like a tiger, that the animal we saw in photos is different from the one that’s eating people, or whatever else. The exact smallness of the probability of “actually it wasn’t the tiger after all” is not central to my claim that it’s obvious or that people will come around.
I don’t think it’s central to this point, but I think 99% is a defensible estimate for many-worlds. I would probably go somewhat lower but certainly wouldn’t run victory laps about that or treat it as damning of someone’s character. The above is mostly a bad analogy explaining why I think it’s pretty reasonable to say things like Eliezer did even if your all-things-considered confidence was 99% or even lower.
To get a sense for what Eliezer finds frustrating and intends to critique, you can read If many-worlds had come first (which I find quite obnoxious). I think to the extent that he’s wrong it’s generally by mischaracterizing the alternative position and being obnoxious about it (e.g. misunderstanding the extent to which collapse is proposed as ontologically fundamental rather than an expression of agnosticism or a framework for talking about experiments, and by slightly misunderstanding what “ontologically fundamental collapse” would actually mean). I don’t think it has much to do with overconfidence directly, or speaks to the quality of Eliezer’s reasoning about the physical world, though I think it is a bad recurring theme in Eliezer’s reasoning about and relationships with other humans. And in fairness I do think there are a lot of people who probably deserve Eliezer’s frustration on this point (e.g. who talk about how collapse is an important and poorly-understood phenomenon rather than most likely just being the most boring thing) though I mostly haven’t talked with them and I think they are systematically more mediocre physicists.