My true rejection is that we shouldn’t be obsessing over people’s appearances and self-expression, we shouldn’t be asking people to be less than themselves. This is not truth-seeking. It gives off the vibe of fakeness and cults and of your mom telling you not to go out dressed like that.
My more principled rejections - It overly focuses signalling on what some people on the internet care about over what the average american / person in political power / AI researcher cares about. - I’m suspect yudkowsky is aware that the stereotypes of the fedora, and wears it anyways, perhaps to reclaim it as a celebration of smartness, perhaps to countersignal that he doesn’t care what the sneer-clubbers think, perhaps to ‘teach in a clown suit’. - You don’t win the meme war by doing the conventional media stuff good enough. You have to do something out of the distribution, and perhaps “low status” (to some). The Kardashians pioneered a new form of tv. Mr Beast studied a lot and pioneered a new form of media business. I should write a longer post on this. In any case, let’s keep EA and rationality weird, it’s one of the few edges we have.
I think “we should prevent AGI doom” and “we should normalize the notion that a fedora is just a hat, not a sign that you’re not some alt-right incel nutjob who wants women in the kitchen and black people in camps” are both worthwhile goals, but also completely orthogonal, and the former is a tad bit more important; so for all that it makes my high-decoupling heart weep, I say if it makes you more likely to achieve your goal of saving the world in the short term, lose your pride and ditch the fedora.
I think you overstate the badness of the fedora stereotype (multiplied how many people have that association, like the integral of vibes over all audience). I would disapprove of a notable Rationalist carelessly going onto a podcast wearing a flag of the soviet union, or a shirt that says “all lives matter”.
And I think you understate the memetic benefits of playing into the fedora meme. Culture is a subtle, complicated thing, where “Liquid Death” is a popular fizzy water company valued at $700 million, because it signals something bad and is therefore socially acceptable to drink it at rock concerts and bars. And when it comes to personal clothing, it’s also a matter of individual taste—being cool does partly come from optimizing for what everyone else likes, but also from being unique and genuine and signalling that you don’t care what everyone else thinks.
But also I think it doesn’t matter that much? Should 80,000 hours write an article on being a makeup artist or costume designer? Is personal visual aesthetics the constraint on winning at outreach/policy? That world sounds kind of bizarre and fun, and I think even in that world we should try to seem real. But we aren’t there (yet?) so we can simply be real instead of trying to be real. Let people be their full selves and make their own fashion choices.
You’re possibly right. Honestly the “fedora” thing strikes me as a Very Online thing, so odds are it doesn’t matter that much. However wouldn’t really want to draw in people who think “fedora good” over “fedora bad” either. When the wise man points at the looming world-ending superintelligent AI, an idiot looks at his hat. Realistically, odds are most regular people don’t much care. But it might be a teeny teensy bit safer to drop possible blatant signals of that sort, to avoid triggering both groups. It risks being a distraction.
Let people be their full selves and make their own fashion choices.
Fair, but also, fashion choices when going for an interview are definitely something most media-savvy people would be very conscious of.
I was wrong. On twitter Eliezer says he wears the fedora because he likes how it looks. He also says he doesn’t “represent his followers and their interests” because that way of thinking fails.
I hard disagree with your point about the fedora
My true rejection is that we shouldn’t be obsessing over people’s appearances and self-expression, we shouldn’t be asking people to be less than themselves. This is not truth-seeking. It gives off the vibe of fakeness and cults and of your mom telling you not to go out dressed like that.
My more principled rejections
- It overly focuses signalling on what some people on the internet care about over what the average american / person in political power / AI researcher cares about.
- I’m suspect yudkowsky is aware that the stereotypes of the fedora, and wears it anyways, perhaps to reclaim it as a celebration of smartness, perhaps to countersignal that he doesn’t care what the sneer-clubbers think, perhaps to ‘teach in a clown suit’.
- You don’t win the meme war by doing the conventional media stuff good enough. You have to do something out of the distribution, and perhaps “low status” (to some). The Kardashians pioneered a new form of tv. Mr Beast studied a lot and pioneered a new form of media business. I should write a longer post on this. In any case, let’s keep EA and rationality weird, it’s one of the few edges we have.
I think “we should prevent AGI doom” and “we should normalize the notion that a fedora is just a hat, not a sign that you’re not some alt-right incel nutjob who wants women in the kitchen and black people in camps” are both worthwhile goals, but also completely orthogonal, and the former is a tad bit more important; so for all that it makes my high-decoupling heart weep, I say if it makes you more likely to achieve your goal of saving the world in the short term, lose your pride and ditch the fedora.
I think you overstate the badness of the fedora stereotype (multiplied how many people have that association, like the integral of vibes over all audience). I would disapprove of a notable Rationalist carelessly going onto a podcast wearing a flag of the soviet union, or a shirt that says “all lives matter”.
And I think you understate the memetic benefits of playing into the fedora meme. Culture is a subtle, complicated thing, where “Liquid Death” is a popular fizzy water company valued at $700 million, because it signals something bad and is therefore socially acceptable to drink it at rock concerts and bars. And when it comes to personal clothing, it’s also a matter of individual taste—being cool does partly come from optimizing for what everyone else likes, but also from being unique and genuine and signalling that you don’t care what everyone else thinks.
But also I think it doesn’t matter that much? Should 80,000 hours write an article on being a makeup artist or costume designer? Is personal visual aesthetics the constraint on winning at outreach/policy? That world sounds kind of bizarre and fun, and I think even in that world we should try to seem real. But we aren’t there (yet?) so we can simply be real instead of trying to be real. Let people be their full selves and make their own fashion choices.
You’re possibly right. Honestly the “fedora” thing strikes me as a Very Online thing, so odds are it doesn’t matter that much. However wouldn’t really want to draw in people who think “fedora good” over “fedora bad” either. When the wise man points at the looming world-ending superintelligent AI, an idiot looks at his hat. Realistically, odds are most regular people don’t much care. But it might be a teeny teensy bit safer to drop possible blatant signals of that sort, to avoid triggering both groups. It risks being a distraction.
Fair, but also, fashion choices when going for an interview are definitely something most media-savvy people would be very conscious of.
I was wrong. On twitter Eliezer says he wears the fedora because he likes how it looks.
He also says he doesn’t “represent his followers and their interests” because that way of thinking fails.
He’s open to alternative hat suggestions.