BC SOCIETY
Saved by @Alex1Powell

I think because the reward structure of being a bio-ethicist rewards saying level-headed sounding, cautious-sounding, conventional wisdom?

Though I'm not sure why that is.

 @JeffLadish I guess if you want to radically improve the world, you mostly don't go into a field that is about opining on other people's work, you go into something like Engineering and do the work?
@JeffLadish I note that Nick Bostrom is what a Bioethicist should be: he thinks hard about tradeoffs and risks, and crystalizes concepts like the Unilateralist's curse and black ball technologies.

But this is starting from a place of "The world could be vastly better. How do we get there?"
@JeffLadish I don't know why bioethics doesn't look more like a field of (less smart) Bostroms.
@JeffLadish I guess because everyone's disgust reactions are triggered by the actually good proposals, and in order to make those proposals the consensus of the field a lot of people have to bite the bullet and stick their neck out saying "I know this sounds crazy / absurd / vaguely evil...
@JeffLadish ...to our intuitions / etc, but it is actually the right thing to do."

And there are not enough people who are up for that, to reach a consensus?
@JeffLadish But economics, as a field, _does_ have this property. Economists are famously fine with policies that are abhorrent to the untrained intuition, but that they are confident are actually better on net. That's a good chunk of what economics is.
@JeffLadish But maybe economics has a solid enough theoretical underpinning, that it can manage to be that kind of field, while, the state of consensus in philosophy, and ethics in particular is confused?
@JeffLadish Like, if you have people still fighting over deontology vs. utilitarianism, it is pretty hard to build to a field wide consensus that we should obviously do covid variolation, because it will save lives on net.
@JeffLadish In which case the problem traces back to "Philosophy has bad feedback loops: you don't get to clearly know that you got the right answer. Which means philosophers are incentivized to make interesting and counterintuitive arguments, instead of to steer towards the actual truth."
@JeffLadish Ok. I think this is the answer to the original question: by the standards of science and engineering, you can settle a question to a sufficient degree of precision, and then move on to higher level questions using your answer to the first question as a foundation.
@JeffLadish But by the standards of philosophy, you can practically never settle a question. There is always space for more counter argument. If you settled the question, you wouldn't be able to argue about it any more!
@JeffLadish Which means that you don't build a foundation of answers to basic questions that you can assume, in trying to answer more complicated questions.

To do it right, bioethics would have to, at least in many areas, _assume_ utilitarianism.
@JeffLadish But if you try to assume utilitarianism, a bunch of philosophers will jump on you with many counterarguments and paradoxes and bullets to bite, all of which erode the ability of a bioethics field, as a whole, to stick to its guns about ideas that are counter-intuitive.
@JeffLadish One thing to note here is that the philosophical standards also challenge the foundations of science and engineering. Philosophy as a whole holds that we don't have rock solid reasons to trust our "obvious" answers to questions of epistemology and metaphysics.
@JeffLadish (Like whether there is an external world or whether knowledge is possible.)
@JeffLadish But the scientist and engineers just ignore the philosophers and assume those things anyway, at least for the purposes of doing their science.

And this works. It isn't necessarily philosophically grounded, but it works.
@JeffLadish And the difference is, I think, that the goal of science is to actually land on our all things considered most-correct answer (in part, so that engineering can build cool things like spaceships), while the goal of philosophy is to have air-tight ARGUMENTATION for our answer.
@JeffLadish If you're mostly trying to build spaceships, you don't really care about gettier problems, unless they're fucking up your ability to build working spaceships.
@JeffLadish And if you you just want to know how the sun sines, you don't really care that epistemology isn't grounded, because while you might be confused about the finer points, the finer points of epistemology are not going to get in the way of your getting correct beliefs about the sun.
@JeffLadish It turns out that you can generally build spaceships, and (more controversially) end up with correct beliefs about the sun, without having a solid irrefutable proof about the nature of "beliefs."
@JeffLadish Now it does turn out that having correct beliefs about what beliefs are, is pretty useful for getting more correct beliefs.

But having correct beliefs about what beliefs are turns out to not be the same thing as having solid irrefutable arguments for your belief about beliefs.
@JeffLadish This, by the way, is my main answer to the objection that I am projecting onto some folks that I talked to about critical rationality, recently.

(To be clear, I DON'T think that I definitely understood the points they made, and I may be responding to a straw-man.)
@JeffLadish But, I said recently that I thought that Bayes is the foundation of epistemology.

https://t.co/TfCQgRqUtv
@JeffLadish Different people gave different objections to that, but one objection was (if I understand it correctly) "But, where do your probabilities come from? Either you're infinitely certain of them, or you have an infinite stack of probabilities about the probability below them."
@JeffLadish https://t.co/8joOxuxaPp
@JeffLadish I think I could give some more detailed arguments about how this works, but I also want to dispute frame of the point being argued (if I understand it) a bit.
@JeffLadish It is totally possible to have a functioning brain / epistemology, that actually works for producing knowledge and steering through the world, which does not justify itself on its own terms.
@JeffLadish Like the question of "Does a Bayesian learning mechanism, work, in practice" is a separate question from "How do we justify that it works?"
@JeffLadish In general, I think many questions of the "but how do we justify it?" stripe, just don't matter very much.

For many things, we can't prove that it works, but it does work, and it is more interesting to move on to more advanced problems by assuming some things we can't prove.
@JeffLadish That is not to say that ALL questions of justification are irrelevant. Most of the time, even, it is very practically important to ask "how do we / can we know this is true?"
@JeffLadish But my goal in asking that is to figure out what's true, to the best of my ability, and to my own satisfaction, not to have an airtight argument that something is true.
@JeffLadish ...
Getting back to the original question, I think my answer was incomplete, and part of what is happening here is some self-selection regarding who becomes a bio-ethicist that I don't understand in detail.

Basically, I imagine that they tend towards conventional-mindedness.
@JeffLadish @threadreaderapp unroll

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There's a particular kind of romantic partnership, with a certain sort of person, that I've wanted since I became a self-aware, directed agent at around age 15.

Empirically, this kind of relationship has been hard to achieve. It hasn't worked out yet, at least.

And this sometimes leaves me wondering if my standards are unreasonable.

In years past that desire was often very alive.

These days, I'm rarely directly or viscerally in contact with it.

I sometimes contemplate aiming for some other kind of romantic and/or sexual relationship instead. In part because I might be more effective if I...I don't know, got laid more? But that's not really the thing. More like, if I had someone around whom I could regularly relax.

But mostly, I don't pursue those alternative relationship-setups out of a sense of something like loyalty to myself + a vague sense of wrongness and/or sadness about it. It often feels like giving up or giving in.

[I might elaborate on the wrongness sometime.]
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Eli Tyre
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CritRats!

I think AI risk is a real existential concern, and I claim that the CritRat counterarguments that I've heard so far (keywords: universality, person, moral knowledge, education, etc.) don't hold up.

Anyone want to hash this out with


For instance, while I heartily agree with lots of what is said in this video, I don't think that the conclusion about how to prevent (the bad kind of) human extinction, with regard to AGI, follows.

There are a number of reasons to think that AGI will be more dangerous than most people are, despite both people and AGIs being qualitatively the same sort of thing (explanatory knowledge-creating entities).

And, I maintain, that because of practical/quantitative (not fundamental/qualitative) differences, the development of AGI / TAI is very likely to destroy the world, by default.

(I'm not clear on exactly how much disagreement there is. In the video above, Deutsch says "Building an AGI with perverse emotions that lead it to immoral actions would be a crime."
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Eli Tyre
Eli Tyre
@EpistemicHope
I was reading something that suggested that trauma "tries" to spread itself. ie that the reason why intergenerational trauma is a thing is that the traumatized part in a parent will take action to recreate that trauma in the child.

This model puts the emphasis on the the parent's side: the trauma is actively "trying" to spread.

This is in contrast to my previous (hypothetical) model for IGT, which puts the emphasis on the child's side: kids are sponges that are absorbing huge amounts of info, including via very subtle channels. So they learn the unconscious reactions of the people around them.

(I say "hypothetical", because all while this sort of thing is in my hypothesis space, I haven't seen clear enough evidence that intergenerational trauma is a meaningful category that I solidly believe it is real.

More like, "here's a story for how this could work.")

On first glance, I was skeptical of this "active trauma" story.

Why on earth would trauma be agenty, in that way? It sounds like too much to swallow.
CULTURE
Eli Tyre
Eli Tyre
@EpistemicHope
I know some people who seem (to me) more concerned with receiving VALIDATION for their mental health issues than solving them.

They seem to care most about other people BELIEVING their problems are real.

I'm curious about this.

Like, it's more important to them that people know how debilitating their anxiety is, than to overcome the anxiety.

Or it's important to them that others believe that they're actually depressed, not "just sad."

Or they want people buy into the narrative that they've been traumatized, and might be something like offended if someone minimizes that.

What do we make of this?

1. One possibility is that if solving the problems seems hopeless or even just really hard, you need external support to be able to cope.

If no one cuts you slack because of your mental health stuff, maybe you're in a really bad place, so you need people to believe you.
HEALTH
Eli Tyre
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@EpistemicHope
My catch all thread for this discussion of AI risk in relation to Critical Rationalism, to summarize what's happened so far and how to go forward, from here.

I started by simply stating that I thought that the arguments that I had heard so far don't hold up, and seeing if anyone was interested in going into it in depth with


So far, a few people have engaged pretty extensively with me, for instance, scheduling video calls to talk about some of the stuff, or long private chats.

(Links to some of those that are public at the bottom of the thread.)

But in addition to that, there has been a much more sprawling conversation happening on twitter, involving a much larger number of people.

Having talked to a number of people, I then offered a paraphrase of the basic counter that I was hearing from people of the Crit Rat persuasion.
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Real talk.

The right as spent years trying to paint @NancyPelosi & @HillaryClinton as extreme leftists who will take your guns, sterilize your sons, outlaw Christianity, and tax you at 80%.

Meanwhile...

The far left has tried to insist that they were both Republican-lite.

1/

Some on the far left call them war mongering neoliberal corporate owned whores.

That's on a good day, for both.

None of these charges, by either side, are remotely true of course. Not that this matters to the people putting this shit out there.

2/

The facts are these.

@HillaryClinton and @NancyPelosi have been fighting people, usually white men, for tnings their entire lives.

With little respite.

At times they have had to make impossible choices and compromises just to beo let in the door. Most women have.

3/

It must be easy to be some 26 yo white dude who has never had anyone tell him no his whole life to sit in judgement of women like them.

"How dare she..."

...do what was necessary to get a place at the table.

...do exactly what men have been doing w/o your disapproval.

4/

Let's face it, most men suck when it comes to issues that don't pertain directly to their own self interests. White men are even worse. We just are.

Most men especially suck when it comes to women's issues and I mean really suck.

How many left leaning men fell to #MeToo?

5/
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kurt lash
kurt lash
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1/ The “I Have a Dream" speech is one of the most extraordinary speeches in American history. You should read it again. First, a few thoughts about the common American heritage Dr. King relied upon in calling Americans to rededicate themselves to the unfinished work of freedom.


2/ Dr. King delivered his speech in what he called the “hallowed spot” of the Lincoln memorial. More than a picturesque backdrop, King relied on America’s reverence for Lincoln and the common celebration of Lincoln’s words and acts, especially the Emancipation Proclamation.


3/ “Five score years ago…” King echoes the words of the Gettysburg Address. Like Lincoln, King invokes the Declaration of Independence and the fundamental principles of American freedom, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Every person in that crowd knew these words.


4/ The Declaration, Constitution and Emancipation Proclamation declared and established the fundamental American principles of freedom that all Americans knew and believed in. But these principles and promises remained unfulfilled for black Americans.


5/ Lincoln’s audience knew the history of slavery and many had suffered personal loss in the ongoing war. Dr. King’s audience knew the history of violent racism, segregation, and unequal economic opportunity. The Proclamation freed the slaves, “but the Negro still is not free.”
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Medusa Benincasa
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A man just said “WHAT IS THAT?”when I walked by and then quickly yelled “IT WAS A COMPLIMENT” and then a small child said, and I quote, “Uncle Joe you can’t say that to ladies.” This boy will one day lead us all to greatness as a nation.

This is the second time in a month some dude has said something to me on the street and been shut down before I even said a word. Granted the LA version was more polite than when an NYC dude told me to smile and a lady cursed him out. People are hilarious.

I wouldn’t have been rude to either dude but wow, I didn’t even have to make the choice because we Americans are chatty.

Also I’m worried about Uncle Joe because $10 says his sister is the boy’s mom and we now know she’s not afraid to tell guys what to do.

My eyes got SO BIG and I almost laughed and Uncle Joe said, “That’s fair, my dude” to this kindergartener and I was like oh God the children will lead us.
SOCIETY
Rob Ford
Rob Ford
@robfordmancs
Two things can be true at once:
1. There is an issue with hostility some academics have faced on some issues
2. Another academic who himself uses threats of legal action to bully colleagues into silence is not a good faith champion of the free speech cause


I have kept quiet about Matthew's recent outpourings on here but as my estwhile co-author has now seen fit to portray me as an enabler of oppression I think I have a right to reply. So I will.

I consider Matthew to be a colleague and a friend, and we had a longstanding agreement not to engage in disputes on twitter. I disagree with much in the article @UOzkirimli wrote on his research in @openDemocracy but I strongly support his right to express such critical views

I therefore find it outrageous that Matthew saw fit to bully @openDemocracy with legal threats, seeking it seems to stifle criticism of his own work. Such behaviour is simply wrong, and completely inconsistent with an academic commitment to free speech.

I am not embroiling myself in the various other cases Matt lists because, unlike him, I think attention to the detail matters and I don't have time to research each of these cases in detail.
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Dr. Alexander Hamilton | Alter Ego: AHAM
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MY RACIST

If U remember from an earlier post I brought up Sen Elizabeth Warrens remark that "Obama did more for Wall Street than Main Street." I concur. U can ignore poor black people all day, but under no circumstance can U ever ignore poor white

Now Biden must be careful not to repeat the same mistakes of Obama. Biden most go big & go big fast. Fuck inflation. Order the treasury to start printing money. You will not beat Trump by impeaching or prosecuting him. You must beat him on the battlefield of ideas & you do so by-

helping the people he ignored. People with good jobs, food on the table & a roof over their head dont have time to do insurrections. If U help these people, you will choke off the fuel to Trumpism. Some black people will criticize me for taking this approach. My simple retort is-

you can't out-violence white people. We don't make guns. We don't make bombs. We don't make shit. You have to make it such that everyone eats. Otherwise you have to deal with the warning Heather McGhee lays out in her new book: white

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Those who are well versed in our ancient scriptures must definitely have come across the name of Ashtavakra Muni. Who was he and what is the story behind his body getting crooked from all sides.

Muni Asit was the son of Pracheta Rishi.


He was childless and this caused a lot of worry to him. But an Akashvani assured him that he should go to Shivji to get all his
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I mean more “We took a thing and performed some alchemy, and now have a new thing.”

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The best way to know if people like your product is NOT:

- Have a lot of emails in the waiting list
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- Become #1 of HN or Reddit
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The best way to know if they're actually pay for it.

The only thing that matters is your product providing a value, and you can't know this until people will pay money for it.

We can have a first signal of a product/market fit after the launch by check how many sales we've got in the first 24h. Some scale:

200+ This has a high potential.
100+: This has a potential.
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