That doesn’t spark any memories (and people who know me rarely describe my conversational style as “soft and ever-so-polite”). My best guess is nevertheless that this tweet is based on a real event (albeit filtered through some misunderstandings, e.g. perhaps my tendency to talk with a tone of confidence was misinterpreted as a status game; or perhaps I made some hamfisted attempt to signal “I don’t actually like talking about work on dates” and accidentally signaled “I think you’re dumb if you don’t already believe these conclusions I’m reciting in response to your questions”).
To be quite clear: I endorse everyone thinking through the AI danger arguments on their own, no matter what anyone else says to them and no matter what tone they say it in.
All that said, I don’t quite see how any of this relates to the topic at hand, and so I’ll go ahead and delete this comment thread in the morning unless I’m compelled by argument not to.
I don’t quite see how any of this relates to the topic at hand,
It relates to the topic because it’s one piece of anecdotal evidence about the empirical results of your messaging strategy (much as the post mentions a number of other pieces of anecdotal evidence): negative polarization is a possible outcome, not just support or lack-of-support.
perhaps my tendency to talk with a tone of confidence was misinterpreted as a status game
Um, yes, confidence and status are related. You’re familiar with emotive conjugation, right? “I talk with a tone of confidence; he sounds dogmatic; you play status games.”
Just commenting narrowly on how it relates to the topic at hand: I read it as anecdotal evidence about how things might go if you speak with someone and you “share your concerns as if they’re obvious and sensible”, which is that people might perceive you as thinking they’re dumb for not understanding something so obvious, which can backfire if it’s in fact not obvious to them.
people who know me rarely describe my conversational style as “soft and ever-so-polite”
The women I’ve spoken to about you have ~uniformly reported you being substantially more polite to themthan the men I’ve spoken to (and several of these women pointed out this discrepancy out on their own). One trans man even said that they felt you were quite rude to him, which he took as validation of his transition being complete.
So any men reading this and discrediting the tweet on the basis of “Nate isn’t ‘ever-so-polite’” should think twice.
That doesn’t spark any memories (and people who know me rarely describe my conversational style as “soft and ever-so-polite”). My best guess is nevertheless that this tweet is based on a real event (albeit filtered through some misunderstandings, e.g. perhaps my tendency to talk with a tone of confidence was misinterpreted as a status game; or perhaps I made some hamfisted attempt to signal “I don’t actually like talking about work on dates” and accidentally signaled “I think you’re dumb if you don’t already believe these conclusions I’m reciting in response to your questions”).
To be quite clear: I endorse everyone thinking through the AI danger arguments on their own, no matter what anyone else says to them and no matter what tone they say it in.
All that said, I don’t quite see how any of this relates to the topic at hand, and so I’ll go ahead and delete this comment thread in the morning unless I’m compelled by argument not to.
It relates to the topic because it’s one piece of anecdotal evidence about the empirical results of your messaging strategy (much as the post mentions a number of other pieces of anecdotal evidence): negative polarization is a possible outcome, not just support or lack-of-support.
Um, yes, confidence and status are related. You’re familiar with emotive conjugation, right? “I talk with a tone of confidence; he sounds dogmatic; you play status games.”
I think you should leave the comments.
“Here is an example of Nate’s passion for AI Safety not working” seems like a reasonably relevant comment, albeit entirely anecdotal and low effort.
Your comment is almost guaranteed to “ratio” theirs. It seems unlikely that the thread will be massively derailed if you don’t delete.
Plus deleting the comment looks bad and will add to the story. Your comment feels like it is already close to the optimal response.
Just commenting narrowly on how it relates to the topic at hand: I read it as anecdotal evidence about how things might go if you speak with someone and you “share your concerns as if they’re obvious and sensible”, which is that people might perceive you as thinking they’re dumb for not understanding something so obvious, which can backfire if it’s in fact not obvious to them.
The women I’ve spoken to about you have ~uniformly reported you being substantially more polite to them than the men I’ve spoken to (and several of these women pointed out this discrepancy out on their own). One trans man even said that they felt you were quite rude to him, which he took as validation of his transition being complete.
So any men reading this and discrediting the tweet on the basis of “Nate isn’t ‘ever-so-polite’” should think twice.