Posts

Open thread, 18-24 August 2014 2014-08-18T16:55:33.828Z
Open thread, 11-17 August 2014 2014-08-11T10:12:57.465Z
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, July 2014, chapter 102 2014-07-26T11:26:05.277Z
Open thread, 14-20 July 2014 2014-07-14T11:16:39.188Z
Open thread, 7-14 July 2014 2014-07-07T07:14:12.540Z
Open thread, 23-29 June 2014 2014-06-23T07:21:58.074Z
Open thread, 16-22 June 2014 2014-06-16T13:12:45.789Z
[tangential] Bitcoin: GHash just hit 51% 2014-06-14T08:31:50.695Z
[LINK] Holden Karnofsky, GiveWell: Sequence Thinking vs. Cluster Thinking 2014-06-11T17:08:13.813Z
Open thread, 3-8 June 2014 2014-06-03T08:57:43.756Z
Open thread, 18-24 March 2014 2014-03-18T12:26:26.145Z
Open thread, 11-17 March 2014 2014-03-11T22:45:10.121Z
What are you working on? January 2014 2014-01-01T23:13:21.532Z
What are you working on? October 2013 2013-10-01T20:24:27.828Z
Open thread, September 2-8, 2013 2013-09-02T14:07:55.794Z
Open thread, August 19-25, 2013 2013-08-19T06:58:15.174Z
Open thread, August 12-18, 2013 2013-08-12T06:46:49.581Z
Open thread, August 5-11, 2013 2013-08-05T06:50:46.816Z
Open thread, July 29-August 4, 2013 2013-07-29T22:26:36.505Z
Open thread, July 23-29, 2013 2013-07-22T10:34:12.216Z
Open thread, July 16-22, 2013 2013-07-15T20:13:13.041Z
What are you working on? July 2013 2013-07-02T16:39:03.792Z
[LINK] Fixed-action patterns: Stop FAPing! 2013-05-04T20:23:05.694Z
[LINK] The power of fiction for moral instruction 2013-03-24T21:19:23.724Z
Open thread, March 17-31, 2013 2013-03-17T15:37:26.853Z
[LINK] Westerners may be terrible experimental psychology subjects 2013-02-26T12:46:30.414Z
Open thread, February 15-28, 2013 2013-02-15T23:17:42.391Z
What are you working on? February 2013 2013-02-05T21:43:26.752Z
[LINK] Why taking ideas seriously is probably a bad thing to do 2013-01-05T23:37:55.909Z
[LINK] Steven Landsburg "Accounting for Numbers" - response to EY's "Logical Pinpointing" 2012-11-14T12:55:16.910Z
[LINK] Q&A with John E. Laird and Kristinn R. Thorisson on risks from AI 2012-11-04T15:09:30.066Z
[LINK] Q&A with Larry Wasserman on risks from AI 2012-11-04T11:59:04.640Z
[LINK] Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning 2012-10-26T14:11:07.760Z
[LINK] The half-life of a fact 2012-10-06T11:25:53.904Z
Open Thread, October 1-15, 2012 2012-10-01T05:54:52.611Z
[LINK] The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness 2012-08-14T13:40:27.305Z
[LINK] Nick Szabo: Beware Pascal's Scams 2012-07-17T07:18:09.229Z
What are you working on? June 2012 2012-06-03T11:02:24.212Z
[LINK] International variation in IQ – the role of parasites 2012-05-14T12:08:34.573Z
[LINK] Neil deGrasse Tyson on killer asteroids 2012-04-03T18:32:15.520Z
What are you working on? April 2012 2012-04-01T18:40:52.001Z
[LINK] Freeman Dyson reviews "Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons, and Alternative Theories of Everything" 2012-03-23T00:03:09.969Z
What are you working on? February 2012 2012-02-05T12:33:09.175Z
[LINK] Want to Sway Climate Change Skeptics? Ask About Their Personal Strengths (And Show Pictures!) 2011-09-14T20:05:42.889Z
Gender differences in spatial reasoning appear to be nurture 2011-09-03T11:56:05.166Z
Attempt to explain Bayes without much maths, please review 2011-08-06T09:24:30.349Z
LW/OB Rationality Quotes, June 2011 2011-06-03T16:32:16.552Z
[LINK] Two articles on Bitcoin 2011-05-16T14:36:00.762Z
[LINK] What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology 2011-04-02T10:22:27.886Z
What other causes are relevant to LessWrong? 2011-03-12T10:13:11.646Z

Comments

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017 · 2017-04-25T23:13:58.285Z · LW · GW

Villiam started with a proposal to brigade Wikipedia. This was sufficiently prima facie bad faith that I didn't, and still don't, feel any obligation to bend over backwards to construct a kernel of value from his post. You certainly don't have to believe me that his words 100% pattern match to extruded crank product from my perspective, but I feel it's worth noting that they do.

I feel answering his call for brigade with a couple of detailed link- and quote-heavy comments trying to explain what the rules actually are and how they actually work constituted a reasonable effort to respond sincerely and helpfully on my part, and offer guidance on how not to 100% pattern match to extruded crank product in any prospective editor's future Wikipedia endeavours.

If you have problems with the Wikipedia article, these are best addressed on the article talk page, and 0% here. (Readers attempting this should be sure to keep to the issues and not attempt to personalise issues as being about other editors.)

Anything further will be repeating ourselves, I think.

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017 · 2017-04-25T23:09:49.482Z · LW · GW

That's the joke, when a conspiracist calls one a "paid shill".

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017 · 2017-04-25T18:42:50.453Z · LW · GW

That's fine :-) It ties in with what I commented above, i.e. conspiracists first assuming that disagreement must be culpable malice.

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017 · 2017-04-25T18:34:16.529Z · LW · GW

I already answered #3: the true rejection seems to be not "you are editing about us on Wikipedia to advance RationalWiki at our expense" (which is a complicated and not very plausible claim that would need all its parts demonstrated), but "you are editing about us in a way we don't like".

Someone from the IEET tried to seriously claim (COI Noticeboard and all) that I shouldn't comment on the deletion nomination for their article - I didn't even nominate it, just commented - on the basis that IEET is a 501(c)3 and RationalWiki is also a 501(c)3 and therefore in sufficiently direct competition that this would be a Wikipedia COI. It's generally a bad and terrible claim and it's blitheringly obvious to any experienced Wikipedia editor that it's stretching for an excuse.

Variations on #3 are a perennial of cranks of all sorts who don't want a skeptical editor writing about them at Wikipedia, and will first attempt not to engage with the issues and sources, but to stop the editor from writing about them. (My favourite personal example is this Sorcha Faal fan who revealed I was editing as an NSA shill.) So it should really be considered an example of the crackpot offer, and if you find yourself thinking it then it would be worth thinking again.

(No, I don't know why cranks keep thinking implausible claims of COI are a slam dunk move to neutralise the hated outgroup. I hypothesise a tendency to conspiracist thinking, and first assuming malfeasance as an explanation for disagreement. So if you find yourself doing that, it's another one to watch out for.)

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017 · 2017-04-25T12:08:14.796Z · LW · GW

despite hearing that one a lot at Rationalwiki, it turns out the big Soros bucks are thinner on the ground than many a valiant truthseeker thinks

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017 · 2017-04-25T11:57:25.125Z · LW · GW

Or just what words mean in the context in question, keeping in mind that we are indeed speaking in a particular context.

[here, let me do your homework for you]

In particular, expertise does not constitute a Wikipedia conflict of interest:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#External_roles_and_relationships

While editing Wikipedia, an editor's primary role is to further the interests of the encyclopedia. When an external role or relationship could reasonably be said to undermine that primary role, the editor has a conflict of interest. (Similarly, a judge's primary role as an impartial adjudicator is undermined if she is married to the defendant.)

Any external relationship—personal, religious, political, academic, financial or legal—can trigger a COI. How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense. For example, an article about a band should not be written by the band's manager, and a biography should not be an autobiography or written by the subject's spouse.

Subject-matter experts are welcome to contribute within their areas of expertise, subject to the guidance on financial conflict of interest, while making sure that their external roles and relationships in that field do not interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia.

Note "the subject doesn't think you're enough of a fan" isn't listed.

Further down that section:

COI is not simply bias

Determining that someone has a COI is a description of a situation. It is not a judgment about that person's state of mind or integrity.[5] A COI can exist in the absence of bias, and bias regularly exists in the absence of a COI. Beliefs and desires may lead to biased editing, but they do not constitute a COI. COI emerges from an editor's roles and relationships, and the tendency to bias that we assume exists when those roles and relationships conflict.[9] COI is like "dirt in a sensitive gauge."[10]

On experts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expert_editors

Expert editors are cautioned to be mindful of the potential conflict of interest that may arise if editing articles which concern an expert's own research, writings, discoveries, or the article about herself/himself. Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy does allow an editor to include information from his or her own publications in Wikipedia articles and to cite them. This may only be done when the editors are sure that the Wikipedia article maintains a neutral point of view and their material has been published in a reliable source by a third party. If the neutrality or reliability are questioned, it is Wikipedia consensus, rather than the expert editor, that decides what is to be done. When in doubt, it is good practice for a person who may have a conflict of interest to disclose it on the relevant article's talk page and to suggest changes there rather than in the article. Transparency is essential to the workings of Wikipedia.

i.e., don't blatantly promote yourself, run it past others first.

You're still attempting to use the term "conflict of interest" when what you actually seem to mean is "he disagrees with me therefore should not be saying things." That particular tool, the term "conflict of interest", really doesn't do what you think it does.

The way Wikipedia deals with "he disagrees with me therefore should not be saying things" is to look at the sources used. Also, "You shouldn't use source X because its argument originally came from Y which is biased" is not generally a winning argument on Wikipedia without a lot more work.

Before you then claim bias as a reason, let me quote again:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Biased_or_opinionated_sources

Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.

Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking. Editors should also consider whether the bias makes it appropriate to use in-text attribution to the source, as in "Feminist Betty Friedan wrote that...", "According to the Marxist economist Harry Magdoff...," or "Conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater believed that...".

So if, as you note, the Reliable Sources regularly use me, that would indicate my opinions would be worth taking note of - rather than the opposite. As I said, be careful you're making the argument you think you are.

(I don't self-label as an "expert", I do claim to know a thing or two about the area. You're the one who tried to argue from my opinions being taken seriously by the "reliable sources".)

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017 · 2017-04-25T07:27:26.177Z · LW · GW

The first two would suggest I'm a subject-matter expert, and particularly the second if the "reliable sources" consistently endorse my stuff, as you observe they do. This suggests I'm viewed as knowing what I'm talking about and should continue. (Be careful your argument makes the argument you think it's making.) The third is that you dislike my opinion, which is fine, but also irrelevant. The final sentence fails to address any WP:RS-related criterion. HTH!

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017 · 2017-04-23T01:29:45.442Z · LW · GW

but in the context of Wikipedia, you should after all keep in mind that I am an NSA shill.

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017 · 2017-04-23T01:26:36.376Z · LW · GW

(More generally as a Wikipedia editor I find myself perennially amazed at advocates for some minor cause who seem to seriously think that Wikipedia articles on their minor cause should only be edited by advocates, and that all edits by people who aren't advocates must somehow be wrong and bad and against the rules. Even though the relevant rules are (a) quite simple conceptually (b) say nothing of the sort. You'd almost think they don't have the slightest understanding of what Wikipedia is about, and only cared about advocating their cause and bugger the encyclopedia.)

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017 · 2017-04-23T01:06:43.482Z · LW · GW

This isn't what "conflict of interest" means at Wikipedia. You probably want to review WP:COI, and I mean "review" it in a manner where you try to understand what it's getting at rather than looking for loopholes that you think will let you do the antisocial thing you're contemplating. Your posited approach is the same one that didn't work for the cryptocurrency advocates either. (And "RationalWiki is a competing website therefore his edits must be COI" has failed for many cranks, because it's trivially obvious that their true rejection is that I edited at all and disagreed with them, much as that's your true rejection.) Being an advocate who's written a post specifically setting out a plan, your comment above would, in any serious Wikipedia dispute on the topic, be prima facie evidence that you were attempting to brigade Wikipedia for the benefit of your own conflict of interest. But, y'know, knock yourself out in the best of faith, we're writing an encyclopedia here after all and every bit helps. HTH!

If you really want to make the article better, the guideline you want to take to heart is WP:RS, and a whacking dose of WP:NOR. Advocacy editing like you've just mapped out a detailed plan for is a good way to get reverted, and blocked if you persist.

Comment by David_Gerard on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? · 2014-11-21T23:17:40.232Z · LW · GW

This is a frankly boggling rant I have no intention of engaging.

Comment by David_Gerard on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? · 2014-11-19T14:37:51.252Z · LW · GW

Yes, but if it's not visible in quality of life, and it's not visible in technological advancement ... what quantity is it detrimental to?

Comment by David_Gerard on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? · 2014-11-19T14:34:45.717Z · LW · GW

I haven't really seen much discussion on the intersection of neoreaction and transhumanism.

Is there much other than Michael Anissimov's essay?

Comment by David_Gerard on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? · 2014-11-19T14:32:29.096Z · LW · GW

No, this was the troll post: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/02/a-reader-writes-of-his-experience-among-the-dark-enlightenment-types.html

Comment by David_Gerard on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? · 2014-11-19T14:30:45.816Z · LW · GW

They're a topic of much past discussion on LW, in fact.

Comment by David_Gerard on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? · 2014-11-19T14:21:35.500Z · LW · GW

"In the past two months I have inexplicably and very very suddenly become much more conservative. This isn’t the type of conservativism where I agree with any conservative policies, mind you. Those still seem totally wrong-headed to me. It’s the sort of conservativism where, even though conservatives seem to be wrong about everything, often in horrible or hateful ways, they seem like probably mostly decent people deep down, whereas I have to physically restrain myself from going on Glenn Beck style rants about how much I hate leftists and how much they are ruining everything. Even though I mostly agree with the leftists whenever they say something."

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/

"friends" may be an overstatement. But definitely "people whose ideas he steeps himself in". Well done, you have a convert in the making.

Comment by David_Gerard on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? · 2014-11-19T00:09:14.979Z · LW · GW

We have more people living better than ever before in history, and this is because of the Enlightenment.

Comment by David_Gerard on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? · 2014-11-19T00:06:49.224Z · LW · GW

For a long time, LW was the only place you would read this stuff outside the tiny NRx blogosphere.

Comment by David_Gerard on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? · 2014-11-19T00:04:37.569Z · LW · GW

The fact that this is "catnip" for LW-ers is a bad thing. We ought to be giving neoreaction about as much credence as we give Creationism: it's founded on bad ethics, false facts, and bad reasoning, and should be dismissed, not discussed to death.

I note (and others have noted) that SSC, although hosting the definitive NRx takedown, still puts NRx ideas in the sphere of things to be discussed calmly with steelmanning; whereas it reacts with actual disgust and lack of philosophical charity to feminism, social justice, Tumblr, etc. And that Yvain was literally surprised to find himself becoming more right-wing after hanging around neoreactionaries, i.e. that he was picking up his ideas from his friends.

Comment by David_Gerard on The Danger of Invisible Problems · 2014-11-12T19:54:58.167Z · LW · GW

You haven't advanced a dot of evidence relating to chiropracty, which is the subject of this subthread. You've advanced evidence of lobbyists, but not that the lobbyists are destroying a deserved good reputation of chiropracty. Do you have any evidence to this effect? (Both of the lobbying and of the good reputation.)

Comment by David_Gerard on The Danger of Invisible Problems · 2014-11-10T22:12:23.994Z · LW · GW

As far as real conspiracy goes, there plenty of evidence of pharma companies having to pay huge fines because they bribe doctors in various ways to do what's good for the pharma company.

Your fallacy is: tu quoque.

You've made a claim and aren't supplying evidence for it, formal or even non-negligible Bayesian.

Comment by David_Gerard on The Danger of Invisible Problems · 2014-11-09T23:15:20.143Z · LW · GW

Your arguments against doing science in this case seem fully general to me. They could be used by anyone promoting their brand of alternative medicine no matter how bizarre their claims would be.

And indeed it turns out they are: this is a pretty standard part of the alternative medicine anti-rationalist toolkit.

Comment by David_Gerard on The Danger of Invisible Problems · 2014-11-09T23:13:53.761Z · LW · GW

Big pharma also has a business model where they can outspend chiropractors by a huge margin when it comes to lobbying and PR to establish memes in society.

Big pharma versus big placebo: one of these is constrained by expectations of evidence, the other to people opposed to joined-up thinking.

Are you seriously claiming the medical opposition to chiropractic is a big pharma conspiracy? If so, do you have actual evidence rather than merely asserting it's possible?

Comment by David_Gerard on Wikipedia articles from the future · 2014-10-30T22:51:56.410Z · LW · GW

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary#21st_century

Comment by David_Gerard on Weird Alliances · 2014-10-25T13:58:22.423Z · LW · GW

The health store phenomenon you observe (weird alliances) is called "crank magnetism". People who believe one weird thing tend to believe other weird things. (This particularly applies to conspiracy theorists.) Alternative medicine advocates are highly supportive of other alternative therapies that directly contradict their own, because they're of a subculture that defines itself oppositionally. The money flows in to support this weird alliance.

LW's interests do indeed not necessarily hang together, except being things advanced by the transhumanist subculture. Friendly AI doesn't go naturally with cryonics or nanotechnology as interests, for example (even if those things might plausibly have synergies).

I submit that promoting LW as material for crank magnets may not work well and will just end up infuriating those capable of joined-up thinking.

Comment by David_Gerard on October 2014 Bragging thread. · 2014-10-07T20:47:03.924Z · LW · GW

It's a really good original story and everyone should read it.

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Oct. 6 - Oct. 12, 2014 · 2014-10-06T19:06:13.790Z · LW · GW

Evidence or speculation? I saw the $300 sell wall, but that does not account for the previous week's dip, which is when the "bearwhale" speculation started. I did see plenty of speculation to this end ... but humans, particularly bagholders in a bubble, will grasp for any explanation that is not "we were foolish".

Really, everything is based on the assumption of conspiracy:

  • December - Just a small market correction after bubble, soon we go up!
  • February - Price dropped because Mark Karpeles is an incompetent thief. (This one I'll give them.)
  • May - China dropped the price, now all Chinese is priced in, we go up!
  • August - Wall Street dropping the price because they want to enter cheap. Hold and we'll go up!
  • October - The bearwhale dropped the price, cheap coins that will go up!

It's a cliche for good reason that everything and its opposite is "great news for Bitcoin!"

The ridiculously inflated prices peaking in December 2013 are almost completely explained by Mt. Gox's blatant fraud and the Willy and Marcus bots. A decline from that would be the expectation.

So what was the solid evidence for (and against) conspiracy, as opposed to the null hypothesis that this is just one week in a bubble on its way down?

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Oct. 6 - Oct. 12, 2014 · 2014-10-06T14:12:16.173Z · LW · GW

At least with tulip bulbs you can, like, grow tulips.

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Oct. 6 - Oct. 12, 2014 · 2014-10-06T14:11:11.775Z · LW · GW

There are (or were) many, many Bitcoin advocates in the world who can't see it being anything other than deflationary (as there is a limited supply), it does interesting things, etc. Then the world turns around and sends Bitcoins inflationary for this whole year. Empiricism beats praxeology (again).

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Oct. 6 - Oct. 12, 2014 · 2014-10-06T11:06:51.903Z · LW · GW

[tangential] The price of Bitcoin has been dropping significantly in the past few weeks, and dropped below $300 yesterday. I've read many theories as to how this can't happen, but it is. What's going on?

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Sept. 1-7, 2014 · 2014-09-07T21:59:09.401Z · LW · GW

You're seriously raising the notion of testosterone as magical competence juice as an explanation worth taking seriously? This would make teenage males the most competent and convincing people on the planet.

Comment by David_Gerard on "NRx" vs. "Prog" Assumptions: Locating the Sources of Disagreement Between Neoreactionaries and Progressives (Part 1) · 2014-09-07T17:38:53.774Z · LW · GW

I've been desperately in search of a good history as I seek to decrappify the RW article on the topic, which is rather too cobbled-together (and the SJWiki one doesn't even try for a history). So if anyone has something handy ...

(The stereotypical Tumblr SJW phenomenon seems to have escaped academic notice. This actually surprised me when I went looking, given I know how rabid sociology students are in seeking out new subcultural study fodder.)

Comment by David_Gerard on Why I Am Not a Rationalist, or, why several of my friends warned me that this is a cult · 2014-09-07T10:38:35.408Z · LW · GW

The cut'n'paste not merely of the opinions, but of the phrasing is the tell that this is undigested. Possibly this could be explained by complete correctness with literary brilliance, but we're talking about one-draft daily blog posts here.

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Sept. 1-7, 2014 · 2014-09-07T09:23:41.632Z · LW · GW

This one from someone going MTF was interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8279058 She found the sexism ridiculously more blatant than transphobia.

Comment by David_Gerard on "NRx" vs. "Prog" Assumptions: Locating the Sources of Disagreement Between Neoreactionaries and Progressives (Part 1) · 2014-09-06T22:05:25.419Z · LW · GW

Got a link on hand? (I don't disbelieve you, I was wondering how he worded it.)

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, Sept. 1-7, 2014 · 2014-09-06T21:55:56.213Z · LW · GW

So why do women do worse in certain fields of work? It turns out you can in fact do a direct A/B comparison on workplace gender discrimination: ask a transgender person. Formerly respected scientist Barbara Barres, now inexplicably-more-respected scientist Ben Barres. Actual quote: "Ben gave a great seminar today—but then his work is so much better than his sister's."

Comment by David_Gerard on "NRx" vs. "Prog" Assumptions: Locating the Sources of Disagreement Between Neoreactionaries and Progressives (Part 1) · 2014-09-06T19:48:59.019Z · LW · GW

Because the "biological grouping" isn't one. It's been a social grouping all along. You realise that groups have joined and left "white" at different times over the past few centuries, right? The historical definitions of races are amazing stuff. The Wikipedia article is a good start (and I link that in particular because you can be sure it's been closely inspected by all interested sides).

Comment by David_Gerard on "NRx" vs. "Prog" Assumptions: Locating the Sources of Disagreement Between Neoreactionaries and Progressives (Part 1) · 2014-09-05T13:56:49.170Z · LW · GW

I think the Social Justice movement came out of postmodernism

The term approximately as we know it was used by Catholics in the 19th Century, coined in the 1840s by Jesuit priest Luigi Taparelli. (How we got from there to Tumblr is an interesting journey but an approximately continuous one.)

Comment by David_Gerard on "NRx" vs. "Prog" Assumptions: Locating the Sources of Disagreement Between Neoreactionaries and Progressives (Part 1) · 2014-09-05T13:55:03.520Z · LW · GW

c.f. the Cathedral, which is an attempt to frame the culture that the rest of us call "Western civilisation as it is now" as a conspiracy, or something enough like a conspiracy to speak of in the terms appropriate to one.

Comment by David_Gerard on "NRx" vs. "Prog" Assumptions: Locating the Sources of Disagreement Between Neoreactionaries and Progressives (Part 1) · 2014-09-05T13:51:50.631Z · LW · GW

Compared to neoreaction, libertarianism and liberalism are virtually twins, as children of the Enlightenment.

Comment by David_Gerard on "NRx" vs. "Prog" Assumptions: Locating the Sources of Disagreement Between Neoreactionaries and Progressives (Part 1) · 2014-09-05T13:49:18.491Z · LW · GW

Worried about "white extinction"? Stop worrying - more people are signing up to be white than ever before!

Comment by David_Gerard on "NRx" vs. "Prog" Assumptions: Locating the Sources of Disagreement Between Neoreactionaries and Progressives (Part 1) · 2014-09-05T13:44:49.784Z · LW · GW

More specifically, I thought the main connection was (a) Moldbug frequenting OB (b) Mike Anissimov as the transhumanist neoreactionary. Was there more I've missed? (I know lots more of such showed up later.)

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, 25-31 August 2014 · 2014-08-28T21:31:58.008Z · LW · GW

I really don't think so. There's a pattern of this with creationists, c.f. Paul Broun condemning embryology as (literally) the work of Satan - which sounds truly weird unless you know how much e.g. Dawkins hammered on embryology as slam-dunk proof of evolution in The Greatest Show On Earth. This is another in a long series of bills attempting to get creationism a foothold in publicly-funded education, even if it has to be written entirely in dogwhistles. It may seem uncharitable in the evidence given (a single link), but not if you know the history of this sort of attempted legislative end-run.

Comment by David_Gerard on Hal Finney has just died. · 2014-08-28T21:29:20.991Z · LW · GW

.

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, 25-31 August 2014 · 2014-08-27T21:11:58.870Z · LW · GW

The Fate of Galt's Gulch Chile, an experimental Objectivist community. Post is by a buyer.

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, 25-31 August 2014 · 2014-08-27T21:03:11.398Z · LW · GW

When your delusion runs deep enough, the actual process of joined-up thinking itself is literally your enemy.

Comment by David_Gerard on [meta] Future moderation and investigation of downvote abuse cases, or, I don't want to deal with this stuff · 2014-08-18T17:03:20.480Z · LW · GW

Remember to give Kaj an upvote for this post :-)

Comment by David_Gerard on The metaphor/myth of general intelligence · 2014-08-18T16:59:43.454Z · LW · GW

I note also KnaveOfAllTrades' recent post about the analogous concept of a "sports quotient".

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, 11-17 August 2014 · 2014-08-18T16:55:46.920Z · LW · GW

New open thread

Comment by David_Gerard on Open thread, 11-17 August 2014 · 2014-08-13T11:22:41.639Z · LW · GW

The description: "Philosophy in Video Games [F]: A discussion of philosophical themes present in many different video games. Topics will include epistemology, utilitarianism, philosophy of science, ethics, logic, and metaphysics. All topics will be explained upon introduction and no prior knowledge is necessary to participate!"

Did they record all panels?