I really appreciate you for writing how despite verbally agreeing that modesty is unproductive, you nevertheless never judged high-status people as dumb. That’s totally the kind of noticing/Law I imagine we need more of.
And I also imagine this is the sort of mindset Eliezer is looking for—the mindset where you figure those things out unprompted, without an Eliezer there to correct you.
I find this comment kind of aggravating.
I’ll claim that the very mindset you mention starts with not taking Eliezer at face value when he half-implies he’s the only person producing useful alignment research on earth, an that his ability to write an angry rant about hopeless it all is proves that everyone else is a follower drone because they didn’t write the rant first.
Like, I think Eliezer deserves a lot of respect, and I’m aware I’m caricaturing him a bit, but… not that much?
I don’t even think I disagree with you in substance. The mindset of thinking for yourself is useful, etc. But part of that mindset is to not unironically quote everything Eliezer says about how smart he is.
I find this comment kind of aggravating.
I’ll claim that the very mindset you mention starts with not taking Eliezer at face value when he half-implies he’s the only person producing useful alignment research on earth, an that his ability to write an angry rant about hopeless it all is proves that everyone else is a follower drone because they didn’t write the rant first.
Like, I think Eliezer deserves a lot of respect, and I’m aware I’m caricaturing him a bit, but… not that much?
I don’t even think I disagree with you in substance. The mindset of thinking for yourself is useful, etc. But part of that mindset is to not unironically quote everything Eliezer says about how smart he is.