Insularity is always dangerous, and too much internal jargon can scare off outsiders. However, postmodernists are quite unlike the LW-community. For instance, postmodernists tend to be anti-scientific and deliberately obscurantist, as Alan Sokal showed by publishing a fake article in a postmodernist journal. Hence I don’t think the analogy works very well.
Sokal was published by the journal. Eliezer made a decision that LW is not the kind of place to publish a debate about the basilisk.
You can’t criticise people at the same time for providing a forum for crazy ideas and for not providing such a forum and argue that both decision basically show that people go wrong.
EY didn’t reject the Basilisk argument for being stupid, he rejected it for being dangerous...people were believing in it, and therefore taking it seriously.
When it comes to a political idea like Marxism labeling it as dangerous doesn’t mean that one doesn’t consider it stupid or wrong.
Stupid is also not a good word to describe a complex argument that you consider to be wrong.
When it comes to Sokal, Sokal had no skills as being well educated in postmodernism. In his idea the postmodernists should have noticed that what he says doesn’t make any sense.
Roko on the other hand is smart and does have an understanding of the local memespace. Roko isn’t stupid or ignorant of the ideas he was discussing.
Thinking about blackmail and how to structure a decision theory to avoid being subject to blackmail is also not a worthless endeavor.
Insularity is always dangerous, and too much internal jargon can scare off outsiders. However, postmodernists are quite unlike the LW-community. For instance, postmodernists tend to be anti-scientific and deliberately obscurantist, as Alan Sokal showed by publishing a fake article in a postmodernist journal. Hence I don’t think the analogy works very well.
Wasn’t the B.s.l.sk an inadvertent self-Sokal.....a bunch of self declared rationalists taking an absolutely ridiculous idea much too seriously?
Sokal was published by the journal. Eliezer made a decision that LW is not the kind of place to publish a debate about the basilisk.
You can’t criticise people at the same time for providing a forum for crazy ideas and for not providing such a forum and argue that both decision basically show that people go wrong.
EY didn’t reject the Basilisk argument for being stupid, he rejected it for being dangerous...people were believing in it, and therefore taking it seriously.
When it comes to a political idea like Marxism labeling it as dangerous doesn’t mean that one doesn’t consider it stupid or wrong. Stupid is also not a good word to describe a complex argument that you consider to be wrong.
When it comes to Sokal, Sokal had no skills as being well educated in postmodernism. In his idea the postmodernists should have noticed that what he says doesn’t make any sense. Roko on the other hand is smart and does have an understanding of the local memespace. Roko isn’t stupid or ignorant of the ideas he was discussing.
Thinking about blackmail and how to structure a decision theory to avoid being subject to blackmail is also not a worthless endeavor.
Again, the point is that the Basilisk was taken seriously