short answer: apparently I’m not sure how to clarify it.
Before this change, which I feel fixes the main issue I was worried about:
rationalists should win [at life, their goals, etc]
it sounded to a large subset of my predictor of how my friends would react if I shared this to invite them to participate here, that I should predict that they would read it as “win at the zero sum game of life”. this still has some ambiguity in that direction; by not clearly implying that life isn’t zero sum, an implication that a certain kind of friend is worried anyone who thinks themselves smarter or more rational than others is likely to also believe, that sort of easily spooked friend will be turned away by this phrasing. I don’t say this to claim this friend is correct; I say this because I want to invite more of this sort of friend to participate here. I also recognize that accommodating the large number of easily spooked humans out there can be a chore, which is why I phrase the criticism by describing in detail how the critique is based on a prediction of those who won’t comment about it. Those who do believe life is zero sum, and those who spend their day angry at the previous group who believe life is zero sum, should, in my opinion, both be able to read this and get excited that this rational viewpoint has a shot at improving on their own viewpoint; the conflict between these types of friend should be visibly “third door”ed here. To do this needs a subtlety that I write out this long meta paragraph because I am actually not really sure how to manage; a subtlety that I am failing to encode. So I just want to write out a more detailed overview of my meta take and let it sit here. Perhaps this is because the post is already at the pareto frontier of what my level of intelligence and rationality can achieve, and this feedback is therefore nearly useless!
In other words: nothing actually specifically endorses moloch. But there’s a specific kind of vibe that is common around here, which I think a good intro should help onramp people into understanding, and which presently is an easier vibe to get started with for the type of friend who believes life is zero sum and would like to win against others.
Btw, I unvoted my starting comment, based on a hunch about how I’d like comments to be ordered here.
The question of whether truth-seeking (epistemic) rationality is actually the same.as.winning (instrumental) rationality has never been settled. In the interests of epistemic rationality, it might have been better to phrase this as “we are interested in seeking both truth and usefulness”.
short answer: apparently I’m not sure how to clarify it.
Before this change, which I feel fixes the main issue I was worried about:
it sounded to a large subset of my predictor of how my friends would react if I shared this to invite them to participate here, that I should predict that they would read it as “win at the zero sum game of life”. this still has some ambiguity in that direction; by not clearly implying that life isn’t zero sum, an implication that a certain kind of friend is worried anyone who thinks themselves smarter or more rational than others is likely to also believe, that sort of easily spooked friend will be turned away by this phrasing. I don’t say this to claim this friend is correct; I say this because I want to invite more of this sort of friend to participate here. I also recognize that accommodating the large number of easily spooked humans out there can be a chore, which is why I phrase the criticism by describing in detail how the critique is based on a prediction of those who won’t comment about it. Those who do believe life is zero sum, and those who spend their day angry at the previous group who believe life is zero sum, should, in my opinion, both be able to read this and get excited that this rational viewpoint has a shot at improving on their own viewpoint; the conflict between these types of friend should be visibly “third door”ed here. To do this needs a subtlety that I write out this long meta paragraph because I am actually not really sure how to manage; a subtlety that I am failing to encode. So I just want to write out a more detailed overview of my meta take and let it sit here. Perhaps this is because the post is already at the pareto frontier of what my level of intelligence and rationality can achieve, and this feedback is therefore nearly useless!
In other words: nothing actually specifically endorses moloch. But there’s a specific kind of vibe that is common around here, which I think a good intro should help onramp people into understanding, and which presently is an easier vibe to get started with for the type of friend who believes life is zero sum and would like to win against others.
Btw, I unvoted my starting comment, based on a hunch about how I’d like comments to be ordered here.
The question of whether truth-seeking (epistemic) rationality is actually the same.as.winning (instrumental) rationality has never been settled. In the interests of epistemic rationality, it might have been better to phrase this as “we are interested in seeking both truth and usefulness”.