Posts
Comments
Really interesting project, Mordechai! Have you seen some of Geoffrey Hinton's latest remarks? He's said some things along these lines actually. Feel free to message me and I can point you to it.
What is the appropriate emotional response? It sounds like you're saying the appropriate one is denial, which, fair enough, is what some may choose.
Really appreciate this response, I think you nailed it! A general superintelligence is unseeable so you have to use one of those analogies.
Whoops! I definitely posted this second one to Alignment Forum but I guess it got cross posted back to LW.
Well I appreciate your comment but I think something's missing as far as conveying the emotions of the situation. I can imagine a death, a car crash for example, or imagine death on an even bigger scale like a nuclear weapon. I can imagine a disaster movie before it resolves on a happy ending. But I think those conceptions don't convey much, because I acknowledge that superintelligence can be destructive and can even envision what the end state of destruction would look like. Just envisioning that end state without explaining superintelligence that caused us to get to that end state doesn't do much for me though.
Ah yes, Rational Animations did a great video of that story. That did make superintelligence more graspable, but you know I had watched it and forgotten about it. I think it showed how our human civilization is vulnerable to other intelligences (aliens), but didn't still made the superintelligence concept one that that easy to grok.
When we got drill down into the crux of disagreement you walk away because it's not a good use of time/energy. Of course you're welcome to do that, but unfortunate.
I think you should uplevel the discourse by changing the title of the post and maybe deleting it. You're just allowing vibes-based bullying, which is pretty toxic. Here's why:
She elevated Kat's name to the headline; used the entire post to insult her writing; drew on ageist tropes and perjoratives like "cringe" to make her case; explicitly chose to share the message not with the writing's intended audience but rather an in-group who shares a distaste for lower-brow content; did so in an effort to rile up pressure to change the behavior on the other site; which was an all the more potent strike considering the context that Kat is already a well-known figure who presumably cares about her standing among LW/EA communities.
If she didn't want this to be a personal attack, she could have made many different choices along the way, which she obviously did not, the most prominent being posting on Reddit rather than here and not putting her name in the headline, on top of what someone else has pointed out was "unnecessarily harsh tone" and what I will deem as uncharitable motivations like being "grumpy" about the vibes and mounting this attack for "fun", a far more viscious kind of engagement bait than the memes she criticized.
Let me get this straight.
After she elevates Kat's name to the headline; uses the entire post to insult her writing; draws on ageist tropes and perjoratives like "cringe" to make her case; explicitly chooses to share the message not with the writing's intended audience but rather a specific in-group who shares a distaste for Reddit's lower-brow content; doing so in an effort to rile up pressure to change her behavior on the other site; an all the more potent strike considering the context that Kat is already a well-known figure who presumably cares about her standing among LW/EA communities... you don't believe this is bullying because Browsing dropped a passing caveat that Kat might be nice in personal relations and that her object-level issue was largely that the content checks notes "feels bad for my brain" like the equivalent of eating cheetos.
Huh?
Here's the problem with your view. You're so reluctant to "accuse" someone of a "personal attack" or "bullying" that when it happens, you're lost trying to determine where the behavior lies in gray thresholds of the definition that you ignore the misbehavior in plain sight. That lacks common sense. If she didn't want this to be a "personal attack", she could have made many different choices along the way, which she obviously did not, the most prominent being posting on Reddit rather than here and not putting her name in the headline, on top of what you already pointed out was "unnecessarily harsh tone" and what I will deem shallow and uncharitable motivations like being "grumpy" about the vibes and mounting this attack for "fun", a far more viscious kind of engagement bait than the memes she criticized.
I'm confident in saying that the information here is not sufficient to conclude she was making a personal attack.
A wild claim to make about a post that explictly centers around shaming Kat for her posting style predominantly because it's "cringe", by putting her name in the headline (what I meant by name-calling) and orienting the entire argument around her. If it wasn't meant to tarnish her reputation, why not instead make the post about just her issues with the disagreeable content?
If she said that was her intent, I'd change my mind. Or if she said something that was unambiguously a personal attack I'd change my mind, but at the moment I see no reason not to read the post as well meaning innocent criticism...I also don't think it's very appropriate for this forum.
If intent was determined solely by someone's words than I'd agree with you that her caveat made in passing indicates well-meaningness, but the standard you've set for determining intent is as naive as believing when someone says "I like you as a person" before they knock you out with a punch that they do not intend to cause you harm.
Even by her own words this is not "innocent criticism", because she states that she dislikes the "deluge of posts" and her "futile downvotes accomplish nothing, so instead I am writing this blog post" which indicate she elevated her response to bring about behavior change, not by using the methods native to Reddit, but rather by leaning on those friendly to her position in the group to shame Kat into compliance.
Before you misquote me as analogizing this post to a punch, let me be clear that I'm merely observing you are clinging so minutely to small signals that are arguably misdirections, that you're missing the extent to which browsing's post is more than "inappropriate" as you acknowledge, because as I said it amounts to bullying someone to get in line on another forum, because it's fun to do. Why don't you hold yourself to a higher standard?
This wasn't criticism of just the project (e.g. her content), it was criticism of the person because of the content they make, because let’s be real a personal attack is much more damaging. And yes, it was meant to tarnish her reputation because, well, did you not read the headline of the post?
Sure, consumers may form their opinion of a person, their reputation, based on a composite knowledge of their professional or personal behavior, so the post’s caveat factors in one small way to the equation. But what drove reputation change here much more significantly is browsing name calling Kat in the headline, and orienting the entire post as a complaint towards her.
You think I’m being uncharitable? I think you’re being so charitable towards one passing caveat you're ignoring the obvious goal here: to bully someone to get in line on another forum, largely because she doesn’t like the vibes and it’s fun to do. And that’s why I think this is so inappropriate for this forum.
What does it mean to tarnish the reputation of someone as a "public figure" and not as a person?
He's a dick politician (but a great husband)?
Consumers are only aware of whatever is publicly known to them, so their reputation is entirely depenedent of what one thinks about the "public figure."
Herego, his actions expressly are meant to tarnish her reputation.
Let's just observe that your "fun" is policing someone's popular memes, on an entirely different social media site that's not LessWrong, because you find them cringe.
And what was all the more "fun" for you was to psychoanalyze and essentially pressure her to cut back with cancel culture tactics.
I say that because if you wanted to question the merits of the content and it being net-positive, wouldn't you just post the memes themselves?
Trying to police a seperate site on LessWrong, and doing so by going after the poster for "fun" on the basis of divergent personal taste, seems not only like the "engagement baiting" you're accusing her of but also legitimately scummy ethics.
If you and the LW forum holds itself to higher standards, I struggle to understand why it's acceptable to have posts that expressly attempts to tarnish someone's reputation largely because you think it's fun to say that their jokes aren't humorous.
Kat Woods often doesn’t give proper credit when spreading memes.
Truly wild to expect "memes" to be properly credited.
The rest of the Internet does not work like LessWrong, which is intentionally so, and expecting otherwise is unrealistic.