Talk:Scott Alexander/Archive1
Tax name[edit]
Please don't post Dr Alexander's tax name to the article. It's findable if you try, but it's pretty unique, and I've seen the Internet feckwits who think contacting his hospital about his posts would be a great idea - David Gerard (talk) 11:31, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
Should we be more critical?[edit]
Alexanders not an idiot by any means but politically he goes easier on Neoreactionaries than he does feminists and some of his views on AI seem borderline pseudo-scientific. He also has the general anti-politics routine you see on LessWrong, mainly through false equivalences to write everyone off (such as implying that the left-wing idea of a 15 dollar minimum wage is equally as crazy as building a wall across the entire southern border of the United States). Some of his understandings of political spectrums are surprisingly inaccurate though I suppose that has some more leeway in it since it's not an exact science. ClothCoat (talk) 23:28, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
- Agreed, but until I got the idea to do so recently, I didn't know I would be writing a wiki page on him, so I didn't make notes or anything when I was previously reading his writings. I was just thinking myself today that I should add something on his weird ideas related to politics and social justice - for example, he's advocated 10%-tithe-style effective altruism for everyone without even acknowledging the effect following that advice would have on poor single mothers, let alone poor single mothers with scrupulosity issues (despite the fact that he claims to care about people with scrupulosity issues, and he should have a professional interest in that given his profession). For another example, he promotes highly dubious statistics "showing" that lack of women in STEM careers is 100% down to lack of women studying STEM, without understanding basic facts like you don't always need a CS degree to work as a programmer, contrary to how it is in his profession (doctors need to have a recognised doctorate). The typical schoolboy howlers made by know-it-alls pronouncing outside their fields of expertise, in other words. See also engineers and woo. Feel free to add critical stuff like this.--Greenrd (talk) 18:04, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
NPOV[edit]
Is it not considered problematic that this article is essentially a hit piece? Anyone who stumbles over this page is liable to think less of RationalWiki. Even if being libellous was the goal, this is way too in-your-face to be effective at all. 173.176.105.79 (talk) 23:06, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
- RationalWiki:What is a RationalWiki article? - David Gerard (talk) 18:50, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Can you state exactly what in the article you think is "a hit piece"? The only thing I see is some extremely mild criticism. --Ymir (talk) 05:15, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
- I must admit that after reading the article, I can't really see how the label "hit piece", even if hedged by "essentially", applies either. ScepticWombat (talk) 05:36, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
- Can you state exactly what in the article you think is "a hit piece"? The only thing I see is some extremely mild criticism. --Ymir (talk) 05:15, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
You contrast his views on AI with an "actual" researchers, without noting the actual researchers (like Stuart Russell) who share his concerns. — Unsigned, by: 71.204.238.2 / talk / contribs
- Stuart Russell is a researcher in made-up AI, posting his results to LessWrong, not a researcher in actual AI that is even conceivably within range of construction - David Gerard (talk) 19:03, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Stuart Russell on Wikipedia Ciphergoth (talk) 01:35, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- How the hell did I mix up Stuart Armstrong and Stuart Russell. Thank you.
- IP: if you're invoking the name of Stuart Russell, has Stuart Russell e.g. specifically named Scott Alexander as someone whose claims he supports? Or do you actually mean "Scott has said something like something Stuart Russell said" or "Stuart Russell said something like something MIRI had raised" or what is the specific claim you're making here? - David Gerard (talk) 09:48, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Stuart Russell on Wikipedia Ciphergoth (talk) 01:35, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
He also co-wrote an extremely popular textbook on AI. Painting him as just some blogger is dishonest.
I for one have a problem with taking one of Amanda Marcotte's few erroneous columns seriously (it's in the footnote about Alexander defending Scott Aaronson, and only a total misunderstanding of Aaronson's comment would lead you to believe it was creepy). Julyo (talk) 03:01, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
- I thought it was pretty fucking creepy, and Marcotte enumerated my concerns with it pretty well. His comment was sincere, and it was also fucked up to all hell - David Gerard (talk) 00:08, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
Then why not simply link to his comment rather than the Marcotte piece and let readers decide? — Unsigned, by: 71.204.238.2 / talk / contribs
- Because context is absolutely key to dealing with SSC - his articles are not somehow isolated crystals floating in the void, devoid of context or impetus David Gerard (talk) 19:03, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Right. The contxt is Aaronson's comment, which you should link to. It isn't Marcotte's ridiculous piece, which has nothing to do with the subject of the article.
- I edited in a calmer statement about Aaronsons's comment, linked to it, and switched out Marcotte's nasty screed for Laurie Penney's rational and reasoned one. Some weeks ago many editors voted in the Saloon about whether this wiki would link to "hate sites." The overwhelming consensus was that we not only could, but should. (My view was more of a "it depends.") So, the community believes in linking to the source itself, and that is entirely indicated in this case [adding: I do not remotely consider Aaronson's comment to equal hate speech]. As a woman (and mother of three boys), I am horrified by Marcotte's piece. It does not speak for me. Others here also dislike it per this discussion. So, I made the change.---Mona- (talk) 05:08, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
- Your edit just now is fine by me - David Gerard (talk) 20:26, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
- If I remember correctly, the Aaronson piece is the one in which he says some completely misinformed BS about the Israeli law changes meant to protect women's ability to file accusations of rape, which should probably be covered.KrytenKoro (talk) 01:45, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Citations needed[edit]
All the entries under "quotes" need to be referenced.---Mona- (talk) 20:16, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced this should even be here. I looked at the recent additions and wonder if the section is even worth having. These aren't remarkable or famous in themselves quotes - David Gerard (talk) 20:26, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
- They're all sourceable by Googling the quoted phrases, but I agree that they don't look particularly noteworthy. & Lists of unannotated contextless quotes don't make for good RW content. Weaseloid
Methinks it is a Weasel 21:02, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
- Agreed, pretty pointless. And I wasn't gonna take the time to google stuff I don't care about to source it.---Mona- (talk) 22:34, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
- A set of links to some of his more interesting pieces, like I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup, or Radicalizing the Romanceless, would probably be a better fit. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 04:31, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
- And why they're fucking terrible - David Gerard (talk) 13:52, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
- A set of links to some of his more interesting pieces, like I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup, or Radicalizing the Romanceless, would probably be a better fit. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 04:31, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
- Agreed, pretty pointless. And I wasn't gonna take the time to google stuff I don't care about to source it.---Mona- (talk) 22:34, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
- They're all sourceable by Googling the quoted phrases, but I agree that they don't look particularly noteworthy. & Lists of unannotated contextless quotes don't make for good RW content. Weaseloid
"calling communism a collection of all the worst ideas ever invented" I've made a bit of an effort to find out what this is in reference to... In http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book-review-red-plenty/ and http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/13/book-review-singer-on-marx/ he praises some of communism's ideas, so it's evident that he doesn't believe this, and he certainly isn't saying it in the present tense. I'm taking it out, but I'd love to know why it got in in the first place. 163.47.104.114 (talk) 08:17, 4 February 2017 (UTC)CompanionGoat
Slightly negative leaning and for almost all the wrong reasons[edit]
I have to agree with the commenter above, this article does come off as something of a hit piece. It's not so much that you're criticizing the guy; I agree that the criticism against him is very mild. It's more the reasons why we're criticizing him: they seem less like valid reasons for criticism and more like a knee-jerk reaction to him having the "wrong" views and belonging to the "wrong" factions. From what I can tell from the (admittedly minor) complaints about him in this article, and from the comments of the above poster who was complaining the article wasn't harsh enough, RW users dislike him for the following reasons:
1. He's not critical enough of neoreactionaries, despite writing perhaps the definitive takedown of neoreactionary ideas. After all, he's actually willing to politely discuss and debate their points instead of just dismissing them altogether as racist, sexist, classist idiots; he's willing to befriend individual neoreactionaries and thinks that they can be decent human beings despite having different views than him; he's even willing to entertain the notion that just maybe a few of their ideas might be partially good. Clearly he's basically a neoreactionary in liberal's clothing, even though he disagrees with virtually everything they say!
2. He's critical of "social justice warriors", and God knows Rational Wiki loves those now. He's repeatedly made it clear that he doesn't have a problem with the underlying principles of social justice, and his criticisms of the social justice movement have all been expressed rationally and respectfully (going as far as to put trigger warnings on his posts and use gender-neutral pronouns like ze and zir), and he's made some very good points about the very real and increasingly common problems with the more extreme branches of the movement... but no, we can't have anyone being too critical of the SJWs. After all, SJW is just a slur thrown around by bitter reactionaries and bigots who are upset about losing their privilege, there are no genuine problems with the social justice movement, none at all.
3. He was a major contributor on LessWrong, and no one from LessWrong deserves any respect. They're kinda sorta rivals to Rational Wiki, and petty internet drama and sub-sub-community politics take precedence over everything else. (This seems to be less of a factor than the first two, but I can still sense that anti-LW sentiment seething just below the surface.)
There are some complaints in the article that are legitimate. His grasp on political terminology, while better than average, leaves a lot to be desired. And I certainly don't mind poking fun of him for writing articles that are too long, because they totally are. And I haven't read any of his writings on AI (and even if I did, I wouldn't know enough about the subject to make a valid judgment on them), so he could be completely off the mark in that regard. But most of the complaints just seem to be left-liberal heresy charges: he's too lukewarm against our group's enemies, he's too critical of our group's allies, that practically makes him one of our enemies too.
I have no affiliation with Scott or his site, by the way. I actually found his site through Rational Wiki, just a few days ago! I was looking for a more detailed analysis and critique of the neoreactionary movement that went beyond "they're fascist capitalist libertarian monarchists so they're bad", and I found one. But I like a lot of what I've read on the site, including some of the supposedly "terrible" articles you guys linked to above (I found his article on ingroup/outgroup dynamics and their relation to modern politics to be absolutely brilliant, and that's coming from someone with an MS in Political Science), so I was really confused why your article on him tends to skew toward the negative so much. 63.143.200.126 (talk) 12:11, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
- I once proposed fallacies here which I read on his blog through shared articles. That is, I don't even knew his blog and don't read it regularily and as such believed it was uncontentious to propose these fallacies. Wrong. It was a major problem for reasons I still don't quite understand. All I can say, you are right, but it's also somewhat pointless. If he's on the wrong tribe, there is nothing you can do about it, unless the mobocracy of a handful of people is overcome by more people who think differently. ~ Aneris ✻ 14:02, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
- Same user here. I edited the page to be less negative. I tried to remove as little content as possible, and to avoid painting him in an overly positive light. I just removed a lot of things that seemed like weasel words, like the subtle implications that he supported reactionary ideas or that his opposition to some elements of the social justice and radical feminist movements was inherently a bad thing. I didn't touch the sections on Effective Altruism or Artificial Intelligence at all (other than slightly changing some formatting) because I know next to nothing about those things. 174.44.202.247 (talk) 14:41, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
- I once proposed fallacies here which I read on his blog through shared articles. That is, I don't even knew his blog and don't read it regularily and as such believed it was uncontentious to propose these fallacies. Wrong. It was a major problem for reasons I still don't quite understand. All I can say, you are right, but it's also somewhat pointless. If he's on the wrong tribe, there is nothing you can do about it, unless the mobocracy of a handful of people is overcome by more people who think differently. ~ Aneris ✻ 14:02, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
My edits[edit]
One of the users here dismissed my edits as "whitewashing", but I disagree. I was very conservative about editing this article, and tried not to remove any information, but rather to add some much needed context. Here's a list of the actual changes I made (not counting formatting issues), and my justifications for them:
- Prior to my edits, the article did not mention Scott's actual stated political views at all. I added this information.
- Furthermore, while it didn't come out and say it outright, the paragraph on neoreactionaries heavily implied that Scott held neoreactionary views himself, which is completely false. It said he "later recanted many of the points he made" in his takedown of the neoreactionary movement, which is technically part true, but extremely misleading: all he actually said was that some of his arguments were flawed or could have been better, after neoreactionaries pointed out some perceived flaws in his FAQ. His actual views on the subject didn't change, and he specifically noted that he would provide counter-counter arguments to the neoreactionaries' counter-arguments. The previous version also mentioned that he "keeps discussing [neoreactionary] ideas in his blog", ignoring the fact that he only keeps bringing them up to criticize them, or occasionally to use them in abstract thought exercises; again, it makes it sound like he keeps talking about these ideas because he supports them, when actually the opposite is true. (I kept in the part about neoreactionaries frequenting his comments section because I don't know that it's untrue, but I added in a (citation needed) because I don't know that it's true either.)
- I added in his actual reasons for criticizing feminism and the social justice community. Whether or not you agree with his reasons, surely most people here will agree that it's better for the article to include them? I don't see how this change isn't a strict improvement, "X hates Y because of Z" is definitively more informative than "X hates Y". If nothing else, this change should definitely be retained.
- I removed the part about racist and sexist opinions in his comments section because it seemed trivial. In retrospect, this actually does feel a little like whitewashing, especially since there was a link to someone complaining specifically about that problem, so I put it back in.
I hope this sufficiently explains why I made the changes I did, and persuades people not to revert them again. 174.44.202.247 (talk) 19:43, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
- Dude, he literally brought up Mencius Moldbug arguments by name as his go-to comparison when talking about gay relationship counseling. Although, were I to apply my powers of mind reading, I might say he wasn't a neoreactionary deep in his heart, he keeps bringing up their ideas and jargon and expects his readers to know what he's talking about, strongly suggesting (a) he's taken neoreactionary ideas fully on board as part of his mental toolkit (b) he feels safe to assume his readers are instantly familiar with neoreactionary ideas. That you're in clear denial of this is why I call your edits "whitewashing" and consider them utterly untrustworthy - David Gerard (talk) 20:34, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
- And that's not even to mention the neoreactionaries, scientific racists and white nationalists in the blogroll at the side, which are literally the context for every post on the blog. He may not be a neoreactionary, but he is pretty clearly a huge fanboy - David Gerard (talk) 17:53, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
- That's a nice character assassination you're doing here, David Gerard. One cannot have a civil relationship with people they disagree with - and even perhaps value their analysis to some extent - without being a "fanboy" ? Is it intellectually unclean to even consider the possibility that someone else's "mental toolkit", as you put it, might contain "some" worthwhile elements ? Do you even give a single fuck about being fair-handed towards the folks with pages on here ? How is it goddamn "untrustworthy" to link to Scott Alexander's actual statement of his political views ? It's true that a number - not all - of neoreactionaries can be found in his comment section, but he's hardly responsible for that, and I don't see why he should censor them. NewFrenchHotness (talk) 21:51, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
- Apparently "brought up Mencius Moldbug arguments by name as his go-to comparison" means the following: in the article linked there, he mentions that Moldbug proposes to identify the "sovereign" (in Hobbes's sense) as "the one who sets the null hypothesis". How exactly does this suggest that S.A. holds neoreactionary views or likes neoreaction or anything of the kind? What it looks like to me is: he spotted one interesting not-particularly-reactionary idea in the writings of a neoreactionary, wanted to refer to it, and gave credit where it was due. It's not a "go-to comparison", whatever that even means, it's just another way of looking at the idea that cultural defaults determine what's seen as reasonable or unreasonable in cases of conflict, an idea he already introduced and argued for in ways that didn't involve mentioning neoreactionaries. 46.17.166.146 (talk) 17:58, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Reddit thread of the day[edit]
Suprisingly, Scott Alexander fans are less than amused. Herr FüzzyCätPötätö (talk/stalk) 04:48, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
"a phrase he subsequently regrets using"[edit]
And the people who talk about “Nice Guys” – and the people who enable them, praise them, and link to them – are blurring the already rather thin line between “feminism” and “literally Voldemort” EDIT: ARE TOTALLY GREAT, NO NEED TO TAKE THIS ONE SENTENCE OUT OF CONTEXT AND TRY TO SPREAD IT ALL OVER THE INTERNET.
Is that not a sentiment of regret? Would an alternative term be better? @David Gerard Deku-shrub (talk) 16:43, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
- Regret at being quoted, maybe. The context really doesn't improve it in any manner, and it concords with his aside about the 30% of sane feminists (the other 70% being the ones who wouldn't bother debating a neoreactionary). Furthermore, it concisely describes how he consistently talks about feminism. There's no sense in which he walked back the sentiment of the quote - David Gerard (talk) 16:59, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
- So maybe not regret, but he made (in an edit) an active attempt not to have this phrase disseminated as-is. Given the text with written pre-edit, it makes sense to update it 'somehow' to reflect this surely? Deku-shrub (talk) 12:27, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
- Well, he said it and he doesn't like it being quoted. A footnote probably - David Gerard (talk) 13:38, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
- So maybe not regret, but he made (in an edit) an active attempt not to have this phrase disseminated as-is. Given the text with written pre-edit, it makes sense to update it 'somehow' to reflect this surely? Deku-shrub (talk) 12:27, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
"Millennialist ideologies"[edit]
, and has been persistently critical of what he views as Millennialist ideologies. http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/28/ssc-endorses-clinton-johnson-or-stein/ It's entirely unclear that his use of the label "Millennialist" matches any conventional usage of it, and to the degree it does that he isn't just using it as a snarl word. I'm also unconvinced that a post that's just bending over backwards to reassure his TRUMP 2016 readers that he's totally onside with them if not with Trump himself is a substantive ... anything - David Gerard (talk) 17:15, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
- From the piece: The millenarian longing for a world where all systems are destroyed, all problems are solved, and everything is permissible [...] Which of the candidates in this election are millennarian? [...] Hillary represents complete safety from millennialism. In the last instance, he likely meant to refer, as in the first two, to millenarianism (there will be a major transformation or cataclysm that will usher in a Golden Age), of which millennialism (usually a specific thousand-year Golden Age) is a subset. Though in practice, people seem to mix them up. I'll edit fix the mixup in the article. 104.132.0.83 (talk) 22:42, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
Racism[edit]
(there is almost nothing he won't try to apply human biodiversity to,e.g. Harry Potter
Despite apparently having never read them, but he can tell you all about Jensen.)
I removed this excerpt, because I do not believe that the quote appropriately supports the underlying idea that Scott Alexander is racist. It seems to me that he's engaging the reactionaries but not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with their premise. This is at least big bundle of Poe's Law.
Also, it's a snark that only addresses the issue obliquely, which is not the appropriate way to debate whether someone is racist or not.
What I have read on his blog is a consistent belief in a lot of genetic determinism (which is sometimes quite uncomfortable and probably warrants a section). But I do not remember anything that unambiguously crossed the line into racism (if someone finds an occurrence, please put on the page). A quick search came up with him praising an anti-racist FAQ[2] for actually trying to convince racists:
I thought I was the only person who had figured out that this worked better than
“YOU ARE DUMB AND I HATE YOU. NOW PLEASE AGREE WITH ME.”
Starting a scratch pad for his early-20th-century belief that economic inequality and "social evils" are mainly the result of genetics:
28: Previous studies found criminality is mostly genetic, but left room for some family effects. A clever study investigates these with sibling age differences. If you have a criminal older sibling, but that sibling is so much older than you that you barely/never interact, you have 25% chance of being a criminal yourself. But if you have a criminal older sibling close to the same age as you who can influence you a lot, you have a 33% chance. This neatly shows a modest but important non-genetic effect, although it can’t necessarily distinguish between direct sibling influence and more complicated things like “your parents changed parenting style during that time”. [3]
He (Charles Murray [4]) is the only public figure I know who shares my view that genetic meritocracy is really scary insofar as it means that many people are poor through no fault of their except but bad genes, and who agrees with me that the most ethical response would be a universal basic income
I'm not very familiar with his writing, but I suspect that his ideas on race grow out of this old-fashioned way of thinking rather than this way of thinking just being a way to rationalize his ideas on race.
Polydamas (talk) 19:03, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
[Redacted][edit]
[Redacted] is a regular in the Reddit /r/slatestarcodex comments, but has he actually been in the site comments? - David Gerard (talk) 21:40, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Upon occasion, e.g. here [6]. Ouosvavv (talk) 06:28, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
r/slatestarcodex[edit]
The section was clearly written by someone with an axe to grind. The account is inaccurate and mostly useless because it focuses on a single event in the subreddit. The ban was overturned almost immediately, so it doesn't seem to represent mod policy. The quoted comment by the moderator wasn't made in an official capacity, so it doesn't represent mod policy, just that specific user's opinion. A one day ban is an incredibly minor event in a subreddit that sees multiple bans and warnings every week. This reads as a petty squabble that someone wanted to complain about in their private fiefdom of the wiki, not a serious or even slightly useful account of the subreddit and its relation to the rationalist sphere. --Reddituser (talk) 22:20, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button:
on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. You can edit the article to correct it. ClickerClock (talk) 07:11, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
- Emil Kierkegaard is a regular, race realism is a regular topic, that's literally a moderator saying "A belief in HBD doesn’t automatically equate to racism" ... it's an alt-right sub convinced it's "liberal" - David Gerard (talk) 21:40, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
- I did edit the article to correct it. Someone undid the change, and their only justification for undoing the change was "bias can be ok". You have a reddit user name linked in your profile. Its easy to search where a user has posted. That reddit user has never posted in the ssc subreddit. I don't understand how you can claim to serve as a valid source for what happens in that subreddit when you literally never go in there, or if your only interaction with the sub is through r/sneerclub links. I also never claimed its not an alt-right subreddit, you are changing the subject to something more disputable. I just claimed that the specific incident you wrote about was:
- 1. Minor and not noteworthy. 1 day bans are relatively common. You could instead link to their public list of bans if you want to discuss their moderation policy, or c/p the rules.
- 2. Not representative of official policy. The quoted text was not made by a mod writing in their capacity as mod. The moderators are users too, and unless they mark their text as mod policy its not assumed by anyone that they are speaking in an official capacity. This would be equivalent to me interpreting every comment you make as official policy of rational wiki just because you have done some admin work for them.
- 3. Fabricated. The ban example was overturned by the other moderators.
- Since you offered to let me edit the article to correct it, I will redo my previous set of changes, and point to this conversation as justification. If you want this to continue being your personal yelp where you can lob overblown accusations then feel free to re-undo my changes. --Reddituser (talk) 22:20, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- Additional update: and now your reason for undoing the changes are "yeah, no". Wow, shameless. --Reddituser (talk) 19:44, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
Recent changes to SSC subreddit moderation policy[edit]
It's clear that Scott is upset that an unnamed "left-wing wiki" (i.e. RationalWiki) has written about him what we have, but I'm not actually sure what - if anything - we should remove and update. I'm bending over backwards here trying to figure out a fair and accurate thing we can say, by trying to infer the course of events. "Culture war" topics have now been explicitly banned from the SSC subreddit since the "Culture war" thread was exiled to /r/themotte, but I can't find any explicit mention of them being banned from the actual blog comments. And of course, Scott himself still covers culture war topics in his posts.
I'm guessing that he initially allowed "race realism", fascism, anti-feminism and assorted political and social extremism from commenters everywhere, and he gradually swept it more and more under the carpet in stages until this point where they're literally on a subreddit that doesn't mention SSC in its description at all - but is this actually what happened, or is it just me retconning? Is there any documentary evidence for my theory, maybe on archive.org? He doesn't state what happened in the past in his update blog post - I'm guessing that's because it would make him look bad - well, worse than he already does.--Greenrd (talk) 15:49, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
- This is approximately the case. More broadly, rationalists really don't like having their receipts shown, and Scott has yet to work out that if you don't want to be called on saying awful things repeatedly, probably the first step is not to say awful things repeatedly - David Gerard (talk) 11:53, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
AI[edit]
The section on AI misrepresents the argument that it could be dangerous. It references a single scientist who says that people who are concerned about AI think that it would incorrectly guess humanity's goals. But that has never been the argument. Scott, and other people who believe AI is a concern, have repeatedly acknowledged that a superintelligent AI would presumably know full well what humans want. It just wouldn't care, if its programming happened to make it care about some other thing besides making humans happy. The analogy is how humans may know that evolution designed us with the "goal" of passing on our genes to offspring, but knowing this doesn't necessarily motivate us to care about that goal and have as many children as possible.
So I think the parts about AI "misconstruing our goals" or "[getting] them so hideously wrong" are aimed at a strawman and should be removed from the article. Can we do that? I took them out (without having logged in) and someone reverted it without comment.
Also, in general, the section just seems dismissive/mocking of the idea that superintelligent AI might be worthy of concern. Is it RationalWiki consensus position that these concerns are obviously false/stupid? If so, can someone explain why? GranChi (talk) 00:30, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
- Old comment, but for those scanning, a problem with concerns about "artificial intelligence" is that this name is a really misnomer (and thus has led to over-speculative promises, and over-speculative worries). The current core of technologies labeled "artificial intelligence" is essentially either long-known statistical techniques (random forest classification, Bayesian, etc.) or newer techniques (machine learning / neural networks) that still have some history, but now these techniques have the benefit of very fast computing power and gobs of data. In general, they are *pattern recognition* or *data crunching* techniques.
- No artificial intelligence currently that I am aware of has the capability to utilize some basic human intelligence traits, like the ability to logically deduce, the ability to morally reason, or the ability to perform experimentation. Even a heavy pattern-recognition skill (such as music) has too my ears been quite the failure, because the "narrativium" is not present, and even the structure is often off. So not very "intelligent" to be honest. And as a classification technique, AI is prone to some weird errors without some serious human massaging.
- Basically, if you know what terms like "underfitting" and "overfitting" are (even only a little, which is where I'm at, but I have coded a Bayesian classifier before), you're aware that a superintelligent AI that ends up being a menace to the planet is not going to happen anytime soon. If someone thinks that, well, I'd love to hear the technical details how they think these algorithms will work to do this. Until then, I treat AI worries as a science fiction threat (worth exploring, of course, but nothing to imminently worry about).
- If there is an "AI" that is *possibly* a "threat to the planet", it is abuse of these pattern-matching algorithms for nefarious reasons. An example that comes to mine is any "AI" used on social media to promote pure bullshit to the top of social media timelines at ever-increasing speed. Yellow journalism bullshit bubbles is nothing new, but the speed bullshit spreads now certainly is. Worry less about AI itself and more about Facebook etc. misusing AI, in other words. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 21:58, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
"Race and IQ"[edit]
The bias against Alexander in this section is pervasive. It should be rewritten quoting directly from Alexander's pieces and setting them in context.
There is no evidence in the links referenced that he considers Charles Murray a close ideological ally. He stated that his beliefs overlap with Murray's on two points: that solving poverty is hard, and that capitalism is nevertheless worthwhile. He said nothing about race. He contrasted those beliefs with others on a quadrant; e.g. communism, which believes that capitalism is bad and reform is not possible; capitalism is bad and reform is possible; and capitalism is bad but solving poverty is easy.
While this section calls out Alexander for associating himself with the ideas of the "hereditarian left" and Greg Cochran, it doesn't offer an accurate view of Alexander's position. He and the authors he links to have stated that genetically caused advantages in intelligence do *not* lead to the conclusion that one group is superior to another. In addition, Alexander has said that while IQ itself is correlated to higher performance, that should *not* affect the self image of individuals with lower IQ scores, since there are many other factors contributing to performance. Docent8 (talk) 13:59, 17 June 2020 (UTC) Docent8 (talk) 18:41, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
- @Docent8 Which bias? ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 20:55, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
As someone who only recently started to look into Slate Star Codex, the wiki at this point seriously undersold me on exactly how racist the blog actualy is. Davis Aurini and Steve Sailer are in the comments. Gwerm, Jim, nydwrac in the comments. On any regular day 40 to 80% of the blogroll are biological racist.s Either hardcore, neoreactionary, or affective altruists. All of them are complaining that they can't say """something""" because of """"something""". An Algorithmic Lucidity endorsed Mencius. Robin Hanson is tweeting about race and IQ. Tyler Cowen is talking about colonialism with neil fergusson and likes saying "straussian". Bryan Caplan at least implictly endorsed race and IQ. Gwerm rote a giant note on herediatary IQ with all Pioneer Funders and Ulsterites as sources. Zvi reccomends ZamDat. Uncredible Hallq ensorses monarchy and links Gwerm who links Moldbug for the argument. Melting Asphalt repeats Ernest Renan-ian and Spenglerist (extreme but esotheric sounding) nationalist talking points. Scott links to many 'HBD'ers, Richard Lynn, HBDchick, Jayman, Fuerst. He regularly talks about the only 4 things racists like: Black crime, ancient civilizations (and why black peope didn't have any), the cost of healthcare (because they drain it), education (elite overproduction + affermitive action is a waste). I'd like to see this point hammered home, now it looks like you're offense mining, rather than what is actually going on on the blog.
His defenders are trying to sow doubt. But biological race thinking permeates the blog. Helpdesk (talk) 19:43, 2 August 2021 (UTC)