Quokkadom definitely, and in my case another driver of disagreement is also something about other posters IMO having too much faith in people’s interest (and ability) in “deep reflection”. Like, if someone’s values don’t currently seem good to you, it’s quite a strong prediction that the person will shift towards good values once the person gets access to future technology and AI assistants. Do people really have a gears-level model of what “deep reflection” would look like in practice post-singularity, from which they can draw confident predictions? Or do they have emotional attachment and halo effects around ideas like the power of rationality/thinking, and somehow those being linked to “competence” so that people are especially optimistic about powerful people (since they’ve shown competence in getting into power), even though we have seen many many examples where people with competence at gaining and staying in power are absolutely awful at philosophical thinking, LW-style rationality, or being interested in the well-being of others.
Calling exasperated reactions to the post “tribal” feels like too cheap of an explanation. I don’t know many rationalists who spend a lot of their attention thinking about how bad Putin is. (I’d expect more tribalism if the example had been Trump.) People get triggered when something they care about is under attack. “Who would you be okay having power” is a question with some real-life relevance (even if it’s often discussed in the abstract and with hypotheticals) and if you see someone advance a take that you think would be very bad, surely that’s a bit of a threat to the expected impact of the community that you’re in? So, I think people care about this not out of “tribalism” but because it’s the nature of “Who would you be okay as a leader/in power” that ppl often feel invested.
Quokkadom definitely, and in my case another driver of disagreement is also something about other posters IMO having too much faith in people’s interest (and ability) in “deep reflection”. Like, if someone’s values don’t currently seem good to you, it’s quite a strong prediction that the person will shift towards good values once the person gets access to future technology and AI assistants. Do people really have a gears-level model of what “deep reflection” would look like in practice post-singularity, from which they can draw confident predictions? Or do they have emotional attachment and halo effects around ideas like the power of rationality/thinking, and somehow those being linked to “competence” so that people are especially optimistic about powerful people (since they’ve shown competence in getting into power), even though we have seen many many examples where people with competence at gaining and staying in power are absolutely awful at philosophical thinking, LW-style rationality, or being interested in the well-being of others.
Calling exasperated reactions to the post “tribal” feels like too cheap of an explanation. I don’t know many rationalists who spend a lot of their attention thinking about how bad Putin is. (I’d expect more tribalism if the example had been Trump.) People get triggered when something they care about is under attack. “Who would you be okay having power” is a question with some real-life relevance (even if it’s often discussed in the abstract and with hypotheticals) and if you see someone advance a take that you think would be very bad, surely that’s a bit of a threat to the expected impact of the community that you’re in? So, I think people care about this not out of “tribalism” but because it’s the nature of “Who would you be okay as a leader/in power” that ppl often feel invested.