Connection Theory Has Less Than No Evidence

This post would have been a lot better had it contained at least a thumbnail sketch of what Connection Theory is, or what its principle claims are. I reached the end of the post still rather mystified as to what you are talking about.

For those, like me, who needed more background before reading the post, I found quite a good critique of Connection Theory here.

I didn't realize Connection Theory was even still around (the last time I remember reading anything about Leverage Research doing anything was when they failed at polyphasic sleep, which was like a year or two ago now?). Good to have some criticism of it, I suppose.

I mention all this because I find that people from outside the Bay Area or those with very little contact with Leverage often think that Connection Theory

Um, this person from outside the Bay Area with very little (i.e.no) contact with Leverage does not think about Connection Theory at all. It may be something that looms large in the circle of people you know, even those of them in the outer darkness beyond the Bay Area, but that is bound to be a small subset of LessWrong.

I see that Leverage and CT have been discussed here before, here and here, although none of the links there to their site work any more. The current Leverage site looks like something designed from the top down that hasn't bottomed out in real things yet, a shell still under development. There is no information about Connection Theory to be found there at the moment.

Perhaps someone from Leverage could write something here to say what the criticisms of the OP are criticisms of?

It sounds to me like some of the criticisms of this can be extended to much of LW's unusual ideas, such as the nature of the unfriendly AI danger and its solution: invented by amateurs, not peer reviewed, unknown outside of this community, etc.

I mention all this because I find that people from outside the Bay Area or those with very little contact with Leverage often think that Connection Theory is part of a bold and noble research program that’s attacking a valuable problem with reports of steady progress and even some plausible hope of success.

Nope, I'm outside of the Bay Area and think it's probably a big load of bullshit (or, more charitably, a few good ideas, oversold).

This post is a political attack that doesn't add anything new or substantive to a discussion of Leverage or of Connection Theory. Much of the language used in the post is used primarily for negative connotational value, which is characteristic of political speech. Politics is hard mode. A discussion about Leverage or Connection Theory may be valuable, but this post is not a good way to start one.

I'm a little surprised that this rises to the level of needing to be addressed. There are a lot of bad theories on the internet. And a lot of kooky new age ideas in California. Without saying necessarily that this is one of them (though based on red flags it seems like it might be) why does this theory need to be criticized more than any other? That's not a critique of te post by the way, just a request for more information.

With regards to expected value, there's a very large number of potentially very huge negative network effects from peddling a wrong theory, beyond the cost of donating for it's research.

The expected value computed by a very very well informed being may be the sum of many terms, some positive, some negative. When we didn't calculate that sum, and are thus ignorant of the sign of that sum or any other property of the result, our number for expected value, taking into account our uncertainty, is zero. Ignorance of other terms of the sum very rapidly 'kills' the expected value.

Then the thing is to note that you don't have to resort to mere passive evaluation of expected value. You can set a requirement and then people will have to pass that requirement. E.g. you can choose 'donate when X' or 'believe when X' strategy.

The most charitable take on it that I can form is a similar one to Scott's on MBTI: (http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/27/on-types-of-typologies/). It might not be validated by science, but it provides a description language with a high amount of granularity over something that most people don't have a good description language for. So with this interpretation, it is more of a theory in the social sciences sense, a lens at which to look at human motivation, behaviour, etc. This probably differs from, and is a much weaker claim than people at Leverage would make.

I don't know how I feel about the allegations at the end. It seems that other than connection theory, Leverage is doing good work, and having more money is generally better. I would neither endorse or criticize their use of it, but I think that since I don't want those tactics used by arbitrary people, I'd fall on the side of criticize. I would also recommend that the aforementioned creator not be so open about his ulterior motives and some other things he has mentioned in the past. All in all, Connection Theory is not what Leverage is selling it as.

Edit: I just commented on the theory side of it. The therapy side (or however they are framing the actual actions side), a therapy doesn't need its underlying theory to be correct in order to be effective. I am rather confident that actually doing the connection theory exercises will be fairly beneficial, though actually doing a lot of things coming from psychology will probably be fairly beneficial. And other than the hole in your wallet, talking to the aforementioned creator probably is too.

Invented by amateurs without knowledge of psychology

...

I don't know about you, but most people get off this crazy train somewhere around stop #1

A post on LessWrong.

Excellent refutation of LessWrong.

So, this "Connection Theory" looks like run-of-the-mill crackpottery. Why are people paying attention to it?

Connection Theory Has Less Than No Evidence

Surely this means there is evidence against Connection Theory. Seems to me, a more accurate title would be "Connection Theory Has Very Little Evidence"

In a more general point, I think it seems reasonable that amateurs might be able to fix large branches of diseased fields if the field is confused but the underlying problem is simple, as might be the case with certain areas of philosophy. OTOH, while psychology is certainly rather suboptimal, the underlying problem seems to be very hard.

Sounds like a persiflage of MIRI.