There are lots of dimensions to beliefs and values. Many communities accept a wide range of variance on some dimensions, as long as you mostly conform to others.
Rather than abandoning every community, try a bunch of them until you find one where you’re relatively confident in your beliefs that match the things they use for inclusion testing.
Yeah. How many groups in the distant past had core beliefs that are false? Pretty large percent. Even if the trend is going in the right direction, it seems unlikely we are out of the woods yet.
Of things that I am very confident are false which are believed by communities? Basically things like “the other communities have very little grasp on reality,” when in fact they all share a large core of things in common. But when the other community describes that core in different words, they say that the words are meaningless or ignorant or false, even though in fact they are all talking about the same thing and are roughly in agreement about it.
For example, when Eliezer talks about “how an algorithm feels from the inside,” he is basically talking about the same thing that Thomas Nagel is talking about when he talks about things like “what it is like to be a bat.” But I suspect that Eliezer would be offended by the comparison, despite its accuracy.
Likewise, Eliezer’s identification of AIs with their program is basically the same kind of thing as identifying a human being with an immaterial soul—both are wrong, and in basically the same way and for the same reasons, but there is something right that both are getting at. Again, I am quite sure Eliezer would feel offended by this comparison, despite its accuracy.
The same thing is true of TDT—it is basically in agreement with a form of virtue theory or deontological ethics. But since Eliezer came to his conclusion via utilitarianism, he thinks he is right and the others are wrong. In reality they are both right, but the other people were right first.
Of course this happens a bit differently with communities than it does with individuals and individual claims. I used individuals in these examples because the situation is clearer there, but there is an analagous situation with communities. This might be a selective effect—a community preserves its own existence by emphasizing its difference with others. Consider how diverse languages develops. Naturally there would just be a continuum of languages, with the people in the middle speaking something intermediate between the people on the two ends. But larger breaks happen because people say, “we don’t talk like those fellows on the other side of the fence.” In the same way communities preserve their existence by emphasizing how bad the other communities are.
The fact that I do not want to do this means that I cannot fit well into any community.
Odd. I’ve found a number (typically smaller ones) where there are some wrong beliefs floating around, but which the core membership criteria fit me well.
If literally all groups hold core beliefs that you are confident are wrong, perhaps re-examine your confidence level. If all public groups in a region hold wrong beliefs, expand your view of communities to include other regions and smaller, private groups.
I try to do that. Being part of a community would impede that process for at least some beliefs.
You are probably right about the smaller groups, but there are high search costs, especially since I am an introvert. And for a similar reason it does not bother me much to live alone and without any community.
There are lots of dimensions to beliefs and values. Many communities accept a wide range of variance on some dimensions, as long as you mostly conform to others.
Rather than abandoning every community, try a bunch of them until you find one where you’re relatively confident in your beliefs that match the things they use for inclusion testing.
I am already sure that all communities include as core beliefs or very close to core, things that I am very confident are false.
I learned that from experience, but it is easy to come up in hindsight with theoretical reasons why that would be likely to be the case.
Yeah. How many groups in the distant past had core beliefs that are false? Pretty large percent. Even if the trend is going in the right direction, it seems unlikely we are out of the woods yet.
Could you give any example?
Of things that I am very confident are false which are believed by communities? Basically things like “the other communities have very little grasp on reality,” when in fact they all share a large core of things in common. But when the other community describes that core in different words, they say that the words are meaningless or ignorant or false, even though in fact they are all talking about the same thing and are roughly in agreement about it.
For example, when Eliezer talks about “how an algorithm feels from the inside,” he is basically talking about the same thing that Thomas Nagel is talking about when he talks about things like “what it is like to be a bat.” But I suspect that Eliezer would be offended by the comparison, despite its accuracy.
Likewise, Eliezer’s identification of AIs with their program is basically the same kind of thing as identifying a human being with an immaterial soul—both are wrong, and in basically the same way and for the same reasons, but there is something right that both are getting at. Again, I am quite sure Eliezer would feel offended by this comparison, despite its accuracy.
The same thing is true of TDT—it is basically in agreement with a form of virtue theory or deontological ethics. But since Eliezer came to his conclusion via utilitarianism, he thinks he is right and the others are wrong. In reality they are both right, but the other people were right first.
Of course this happens a bit differently with communities than it does with individuals and individual claims. I used individuals in these examples because the situation is clearer there, but there is an analagous situation with communities. This might be a selective effect—a community preserves its own existence by emphasizing its difference with others. Consider how diverse languages develops. Naturally there would just be a continuum of languages, with the people in the middle speaking something intermediate between the people on the two ends. But larger breaks happen because people say, “we don’t talk like those fellows on the other side of the fence.” In the same way communities preserve their existence by emphasizing how bad the other communities are.
The fact that I do not want to do this means that I cannot fit well into any community.
Odd. I’ve found a number (typically smaller ones) where there are some wrong beliefs floating around, but which the core membership criteria fit me well.
If literally all groups hold core beliefs that you are confident are wrong, perhaps re-examine your confidence level. If all public groups in a region hold wrong beliefs, expand your view of communities to include other regions and smaller, private groups.
“re-examine your confidence level”
I try to do that. Being part of a community would impede that process for at least some beliefs.
You are probably right about the smaller groups, but there are high search costs, especially since I am an introvert. And for a similar reason it does not bother me much to live alone and without any community.
I find that surprising, unless you mean things that are along the lines of “our group good, other groups bad”...