From my perspective here’s what happened: I spent hours trying to parse his arguments. I then wrote an effort post, responding to something that seemed very wrong to me, that took me many hours, that was longer than the OP, and attempted to explore the questions and my model in detail.
He wrote a detailed reply, which I thanked him for, ignoring the tone issues in question here and focusing on thee details and disagreements. I spent hours processing it and replied in detail to each of his explanations in the reply, including asking many detailed questions, identifying potential cruxes, making it clear where I thought he was right about my mistakes, and so on. I read all the comments carefully, by everyone.
This was an extraordinary, for me, commitment of time, by this point, while the whole thing was stressful. He left it at that. Which is fine, but I don’t know how else I was supposed to ‘follow up’ at that point? I don’t know what else someone seeking to understand is supposed to do.
I agree Nate’s post was a mistake, and said so in OP here—either take the time to engage or don’t engage. That was bad. But in general no, I do not think that the thing I am observing from Pope/Belrose is typical of LW/AF/rationalist/MIRI/etc behaviors to anything like the same degree that they consistently do it.
Nor do I get the sense that they are open to argument. Looking over Pope’s reply to me, I basically don’t see him changing his mind about anything, agreeing a good point was made, addressing my arguments or thoughts on their merits rather than correcting my interpretation of his arguments, asking me questions, suggesting cruxes and so on. Where he notes disagreement he says he’s baffled anyone could think such a thing and doesn’t seem curious why I might think it.
If people want to make a higher bid for me to engage more after that, I am open to hearing it. Otherwise, I don’t see how to usefully do so in reasonable time in a way that would have value.
Sorry you found it so stressful! I’m not objecting to you deciding it’s not worth your time to engage, what I’m getting at is a perceived double standard in when this kind of criticism is applied. You say
I do not think that the thing I am observing from Pope/Belrose is typical of LW/AF/rationalist/MIRI/etc behaviors to anything like the same degree that they consistently do it
But this seems wrong to me. The best analogue of your post from Quintin’s perspective was his own post laying out disagreements with Eliezer. Eliezer’s response to this was to say it was too long for him to bother reading, which imo is far worse. AFAICT his response to you in your post is higher-effort than the responses from MIRI people to his arguments all put together. Plausibly we have different clusters in our head of who we’re comparing him too though—I agree a wider set of LW people are much more engaging, I’m specifically comparing to e.g Nate and Eliezer as that feels to me a fairer comparison
To go into the specific behaviours you mention
I basically don’t see him changing his mind about anything, agreeing a good point was made
I don’t think this makes sense—if from his perspective you didn’t make good points or change his mind then what was he supposed to do? If you still think you did and he’s not appreciating them then that’s fair but is more reifying the initial disagreement. I also don’t see this behaviour from Eliezer or Nate?
addressing my arguments or thoughts on their merits rather than correcting my interpretation of his arguments, asking me questions, suggesting cruxes and so on.
I again don’t see Eliezer doing any of this either in responses to critical posts?
Where he notes disagreement he says he’s baffled anyone could think such a thing and doesn’t seem curious why I might think it
Again seems to be a feature of many MIRI-cluster responses. Stating that certain things feel obvious from the inside and that you don’t get why it’s so hard for other people to grok them is a common refrain.
From my perspective here’s what happened: I spent hours trying to parse his arguments. I then wrote an effort post, responding to something that seemed very wrong to me, that took me many hours, that was longer than the OP, and attempted to explore the questions and my model in detail.
He wrote a detailed reply, which I thanked him for, ignoring the tone issues in question here and focusing on thee details and disagreements. I spent hours processing it and replied in detail to each of his explanations in the reply, including asking many detailed questions, identifying potential cruxes, making it clear where I thought he was right about my mistakes, and so on. I read all the comments carefully, by everyone.
This was an extraordinary, for me, commitment of time, by this point, while the whole thing was stressful. He left it at that. Which is fine, but I don’t know how else I was supposed to ‘follow up’ at that point? I don’t know what else someone seeking to understand is supposed to do.
I agree Nate’s post was a mistake, and said so in OP here—either take the time to engage or don’t engage. That was bad. But in general no, I do not think that the thing I am observing from Pope/Belrose is typical of LW/AF/rationalist/MIRI/etc behaviors to anything like the same degree that they consistently do it.
Nor do I get the sense that they are open to argument. Looking over Pope’s reply to me, I basically don’t see him changing his mind about anything, agreeing a good point was made, addressing my arguments or thoughts on their merits rather than correcting my interpretation of his arguments, asking me questions, suggesting cruxes and so on. Where he notes disagreement he says he’s baffled anyone could think such a thing and doesn’t seem curious why I might think it.
If people want to make a higher bid for me to engage more after that, I am open to hearing it. Otherwise, I don’t see how to usefully do so in reasonable time in a way that would have value.
Sorry you found it so stressful! I’m not objecting to you deciding it’s not worth your time to engage, what I’m getting at is a perceived double standard in when this kind of criticism is applied. You say
But this seems wrong to me. The best analogue of your post from Quintin’s perspective was his own post laying out disagreements with Eliezer. Eliezer’s response to this was to say it was too long for him to bother reading, which imo is far worse. AFAICT his response to you in your post is higher-effort than the responses from MIRI people to his arguments all put together. Plausibly we have different clusters in our head of who we’re comparing him too though—I agree a wider set of LW people are much more engaging, I’m specifically comparing to e.g Nate and Eliezer as that feels to me a fairer comparison
To go into the specific behaviours you mention
I don’t think this makes sense—if from his perspective you didn’t make good points or change his mind then what was he supposed to do? If you still think you did and he’s not appreciating them then that’s fair but is more reifying the initial disagreement. I also don’t see this behaviour from Eliezer or Nate?
I again don’t see Eliezer doing any of this either in responses to critical posts?
Again seems to be a feature of many MIRI-cluster responses. Stating that certain things feel obvious from the inside and that you don’t get why it’s so hard for other people to grok them is a common refrain.