Thanks for continuing to engage! I really wasn’t expecting this to go so long. I appreciate that you are engaging on the meta-level, and also that you are keeping more controversial claims separate for now.
On the thought experiment of the people in the South, it sounds like we might well have some crux[1] here. I suspect it would be strained to discuss it much further. We’d need to get more and more detailed on the thought experiment, and my guess is that this would make up a much longer debate.
Some quick things:
“in this case it’s a memeplex endorsed (to some extent) by approximately half of America”
This is a sort of sentence I find frustrating. It feels very motte-and-bailey—like on one hand, I expect you to make a narrow point popular on some parts of MAGA Twitter/X, then on the other, I expect you to say, “Well, actually, Trump got 51% of the popular vote, so the important stuff is actually a majority opinion.”.
I’m pretty sure that very few specific points I would have a lot of trouble with are actually substantially endorsed by half of America. Sure, there are ways to phrase things very careful such that versions of them can technically be seen as being endorsed, but I get suspicious quickly.
The weasel phrases here of “to some extent” and “approximately”, and even the vague phrases “memeplex” and “endorsed” also strike me as very imprecise. As I think about it, I’m pretty sure I could claim that that sentence could hold, with a bit of clever reasoning, for almost every claim I could imagine someone making on either side.
In other words, the optimal number of people raising and defending MAGA ideas in EA and AI safety is clearly not zero.
To be clear, I’m fine with someone straightforwardly writing good arguments in favor of much of MAGA[2]. One of my main issues with this piece is that it’s not claiming to be that, it feels like you’re trying to sneakily (intentionally or unintentionally) make this about MAGA.
I’m not sure what to make of the wording of “the optimal number of people raising and defending MAGA ideas in EA and AI safety is clearly not zero.” I mean, to me, the more potentially inflammatory content is, more I’d want to make sure it’s written very carefully.
I could imagine a radical looting-promoting Marxist coming along, writing a trashy post in favor of their agenda here, then claiming “the optimal number of people raising and defending Marxism is not zero.”
This phrase seems to create a frame for discussion. Like, “There’s very little discussion about the topic/ideology X happening on the EA Forum now. Let’s round that to zero. Clearly, it seems intellectually close-minded to favor literally zero discussion on a topic. I’m going to do discussion on that topic. So if you’re in favor of intellectual activity, you must be in favor of what I’ll do.”
But for better or worse I am temperamentally a big-ideas thinker, and when I feel external pressure to make my work more careful that often kills my motivation to do it
I could appreciate that a lot of people would have motivation to do more public writing if they don’t need to be as careful when doing so. But of course, if someone makes claims that are misleading or wrong, and that does damage, the damage is still very much caused. In this case I think you hurt your own cause by tying these things together, and it’s also easy for me to imagine a world in which no one helped correct your work, and some people had takeaways of your points just being correct.
I assume one solution looks like being it clear you are uncertain/humble, to use disclaimers, to not say things too strongly, etc. I appreciate that you did some of this in the comments/responses (and some in the talk), but would prefer it if the original post, and related X/Twitter posts, were more in line with that.
I get the impression that a lot of people with strong ideologies on all spectrum make a bunch of points with very weak evidence, but tons of confidence. I really don’t like this pattern, I’d assume you generally wouldn’t either. The confidence to evidence disparity is the main issue, not the issue of having mediocre evidence alone. (If you’re adequately unsure of the evidence, even putting it in a talk like this demonstrates a level of confidence. If you’re really unsure of it, I’d expect it in footnotes or other short form posts maybe)
I do think that’s pretty different from the hypothesis you mention that I’m being deliberately deceptive.
That could be, and is good to know. I get the impression that lots of the MAGA (and the far Left) both frequently lie to get their ways on many issues, it’s hard to tell.
At the same time, I’d flag that it can be still very easy to accidentally get in the habit of using dark patterns in communication.
Anyhow—thanks again for being willing to go through this publicly. One reason I find this conversation interesting is because you’re willing to do it publicly and introspectively—I think most people who I hear making strong ideological claims don’t seem to be. It’s an uncomfortable topic to talk about. But I hope this sort of discussion could be useful by others, when dealing with other intellectuals in similar situations.
[1] By crux I just mean “key point where we have a strong disagreement”.
[2] The closer people get to explicitly defending Fascism, or say White Nationalism here, the more nervous I’ll be. I do think that many ideas within MAGA could be steelmanned safely, but it gets messy.
Thanks for continuing to engage! I really wasn’t expecting this to go so long. I appreciate that you are engaging on the meta-level, and also that you are keeping more controversial claims separate for now.
On the thought experiment of the people in the South, it sounds like we might well have some crux[1] here. I suspect it would be strained to discuss it much further. We’d need to get more and more detailed on the thought experiment, and my guess is that this would make up a much longer debate.
Some quick things:
This is a sort of sentence I find frustrating. It feels very motte-and-bailey—like on one hand, I expect you to make a narrow point popular on some parts of MAGA Twitter/X, then on the other, I expect you to say, “Well, actually, Trump got 51% of the popular vote, so the important stuff is actually a majority opinion.”.
I’m pretty sure that very few specific points I would have a lot of trouble with are actually substantially endorsed by half of America. Sure, there are ways to phrase things very careful such that versions of them can technically be seen as being endorsed, but I get suspicious quickly.
The weasel phrases here of “to some extent” and “approximately”, and even the vague phrases “memeplex” and “endorsed” also strike me as very imprecise. As I think about it, I’m pretty sure I could claim that that sentence could hold, with a bit of clever reasoning, for almost every claim I could imagine someone making on either side.
To be clear, I’m fine with someone straightforwardly writing good arguments in favor of much of MAGA[2]. One of my main issues with this piece is that it’s not claiming to be that, it feels like you’re trying to sneakily (intentionally or unintentionally) make this about MAGA.
I’m not sure what to make of the wording of “the optimal number of people raising and defending MAGA ideas in EA and AI safety is clearly not zero.” I mean, to me, the more potentially inflammatory content is, more I’d want to make sure it’s written very carefully.
I could imagine a radical looting-promoting Marxist coming along, writing a trashy post in favor of their agenda here, then claiming “the optimal number of people raising and defending Marxism is not zero.”
This phrase seems to create a frame for discussion. Like, “There’s very little discussion about the topic/ideology X happening on the EA Forum now. Let’s round that to zero. Clearly, it seems intellectually close-minded to favor literally zero discussion on a topic. I’m going to do discussion on that topic. So if you’re in favor of intellectual activity, you must be in favor of what I’ll do.”
I could appreciate that a lot of people would have motivation to do more public writing if they don’t need to be as careful when doing so. But of course, if someone makes claims that are misleading or wrong, and that does damage, the damage is still very much caused. In this case I think you hurt your own cause by tying these things together, and it’s also easy for me to imagine a world in which no one helped correct your work, and some people had takeaways of your points just being correct.
I assume one solution looks like being it clear you are uncertain/humble, to use disclaimers, to not say things too strongly, etc. I appreciate that you did some of this in the comments/responses (and some in the talk), but would prefer it if the original post, and related X/Twitter posts, were more in line with that.
I get the impression that a lot of people with strong ideologies on all spectrum make a bunch of points with very weak evidence, but tons of confidence. I really don’t like this pattern, I’d assume you generally wouldn’t either. The confidence to evidence disparity is the main issue, not the issue of having mediocre evidence alone. (If you’re adequately unsure of the evidence, even putting it in a talk like this demonstrates a level of confidence. If you’re really unsure of it, I’d expect it in footnotes or other short form posts maybe)
That could be, and is good to know. I get the impression that lots of the MAGA (and the far Left) both frequently lie to get their ways on many issues, it’s hard to tell.
At the same time, I’d flag that it can be still very easy to accidentally get in the habit of using dark patterns in communication.
Anyhow—thanks again for being willing to go through this publicly. One reason I find this conversation interesting is because you’re willing to do it publicly and introspectively—I think most people who I hear making strong ideological claims don’t seem to be. It’s an uncomfortable topic to talk about. But I hope this sort of discussion could be useful by others, when dealing with other intellectuals in similar situations.
[1] By crux I just mean “key point where we have a strong disagreement”.
[2] The closer people get to explicitly defending Fascism, or say White Nationalism here, the more nervous I’ll be. I do think that many ideas within MAGA could be steelmanned safely, but it gets messy.