It’s funny to see Metz going the extra mile for his book, trying to be buddies with his accusers in the rationalist struggle session, all so he can ask his questions for the nth time in hope of a quotable answer…
But more interesting to me would be to finally understand what the “Vassarite” philosophy is. There is the interesting rhetorical move to say there’s a natural and correct way to think, there is semi-deliberate irrationality by the human race, and the only reason we have people making “objectivity” and “rationality” (and even “utilitarianism” and “abundance”) into explicit values, is to reassert natural thought against pervasive unnatural distortion. There is the idea that leftist postmodernism took over American institutions a decade or two ago, and is the biggest and most important example of retreat from natural rationality (with right-wing populism regarded as a further deviant offshoot from its left-wing enemy). Then there’s the account of the rationalist movement itself: Bostrom’s institute was an attempt to talk about the transhuman AI future under the assumption that natural rationality was still hegemonic in the mainstream institutions; Eliezer’s institute (in the Less Wrong era) was an attempt to talk about the transhuman AI future independently of the mainstream, legitimized instead by an explicit doctrine of rationality; but even Eliezer’s organizations have deviated from rationality now, so they can be heard and get along within the now-irrational mainstream, and at this point it’s only the Vassarites who are adhering to rigorous full rationality.
Does it really come off as extra-mile struggle sessiony? I would assume that a New York Times journalist is used to much tougher conversations than this one.
It comes off like a bunch of varyingly deranged personal criticism which no one would ever sit through unless they had to. A struggle session has many characteristics, none of which require it to be the toughest conversation someone will have.
It’s funny to see Metz going the extra mile for his book, trying to be buddies with his accusers in the rationalist struggle session, all so he can ask his questions for the nth time in hope of a quotable answer…
But more interesting to me would be to finally understand what the “Vassarite” philosophy is. There is the interesting rhetorical move to say there’s a natural and correct way to think, there is semi-deliberate irrationality by the human race, and the only reason we have people making “objectivity” and “rationality” (and even “utilitarianism” and “abundance”) into explicit values, is to reassert natural thought against pervasive unnatural distortion. There is the idea that leftist postmodernism took over American institutions a decade or two ago, and is the biggest and most important example of retreat from natural rationality (with right-wing populism regarded as a further deviant offshoot from its left-wing enemy). Then there’s the account of the rationalist movement itself: Bostrom’s institute was an attempt to talk about the transhuman AI future under the assumption that natural rationality was still hegemonic in the mainstream institutions; Eliezer’s institute (in the Less Wrong era) was an attempt to talk about the transhuman AI future independently of the mainstream, legitimized instead by an explicit doctrine of rationality; but even Eliezer’s organizations have deviated from rationality now, so they can be heard and get along within the now-irrational mainstream, and at this point it’s only the Vassarites who are adhering to rigorous full rationality.
Does it really come off as extra-mile struggle sessiony? I would assume that a New York Times journalist is used to much tougher conversations than this one.
It comes off like a bunch of varyingly deranged personal criticism which no one would ever sit through unless they had to. A struggle session has many characteristics, none of which require it to be the toughest conversation someone will have.