That said, I think his fear of culpability (for being potentially passively involved in an existential catastrophe) is very real. I suspect he is continually driven, at a level beneath what anyone’s remonstrations could easily affect, to try anything that might somehow succeed in removing all the culpability from him. This would be a double negative form of “something to protect”: “something to not be culpable for failure to protect”.
If this is true, then if you try to make him feel culpability for his communication acts as usual, this will only make his fear stronger and make him more desperate to find a way out, and make him even more willing to break normal conversational rules.
I don’t think he has full introspective access to his decision calculus for how he should let his drive affect his communication practices or the resulting level of discourse. So his above explanations for why he argues the way he does are probably partly confabulated, to match an underlying constraining intuition of “whatever I did, it was less indefensible than the alternative”.
(I feel like there has to be some kind of third alternative I’m missing here, that would derail the ongoing damage from this sort of desperate effort by him to compel someone or something to magically generate a way out for him. I think the underlying phenomenon is worth developing some insight into. Alex wouldn’t be the only person with some amount of this kind of psychology going on—just the most visible.)
If this is true, then if you try to make him feel culpability for his communication acts as usual, this will only make his fear stronger and make him more desperate to find a way out, and make him even more willing to break normal conversational rules.
I certainly wouldn’t try to make him feel culpability. Or, for that matter, “try to make him” anything at all. I don’t believe I have the ability to influence XiXi significantly and I don’t believe it would be useful to try (any more). It is for this reason that I rather explicitly spoke in the third person to any prospective future readers that it may be appropriate to refer here in the future. Pretending that I was actually talking to XiXiDu when I was clearly speaking to others is would just be insulting to him.
There are possible future cases (and plenty of past cases) where a reply to one of XiXiDu’s fallacious denunciations that consists of simply a link here is more useful than ignoring the comment entirely and hoping that the damage done is minimal.
What is your suggestion then? How do I get out? Delete all of my posts, comments and website like Roko?
Seriously, if it wasn’t for assholes like wedrifid I wouldn’t even bother anymore and just quit. The grandparent was an attempt at honesty, trying to leave. Then that guy comes along claiming that most of my submissions consisted of “persuasive denunciations”. Someone as him who does nothing else all the time. Someone who never argues for his case.
ETA Ah fuck it all. I’ll take another attempt and log out now and not get involved anymore. Happy self-adulation.
That said, I think his fear of culpability (for being potentially passively involved in an existential catastrophe) is very real. I suspect he is continually driven, at a level beneath what anyone’s remonstrations could easily affect, to try anything that might somehow succeed in removing all the culpability from him. This would be a double negative form of “something to protect”: “something to not be culpable for failure to protect”.
If this is true, then if you try to make him feel culpability for his communication acts as usual, this will only make his fear stronger and make him more desperate to find a way out, and make him even more willing to break normal conversational rules.
I don’t think he has full introspective access to his decision calculus for how he should let his drive affect his communication practices or the resulting level of discourse. So his above explanations for why he argues the way he does are probably partly confabulated, to match an underlying constraining intuition of “whatever I did, it was less indefensible than the alternative”.
(I feel like there has to be some kind of third alternative I’m missing here, that would derail the ongoing damage from this sort of desperate effort by him to compel someone or something to magically generate a way out for him. I think the underlying phenomenon is worth developing some insight into. Alex wouldn’t be the only person with some amount of this kind of psychology going on—just the most visible.)
I certainly wouldn’t try to make him feel culpability. Or, for that matter, “try to make him” anything at all. I don’t believe I have the ability to influence XiXi significantly and I don’t believe it would be useful to try (any more). It is for this reason that I rather explicitly spoke in the third person to any prospective future readers that it may be appropriate to refer here in the future. Pretending that I was actually talking to XiXiDu when I was clearly speaking to others is would just be insulting to him.
There are possible future cases (and plenty of past cases) where a reply to one of XiXiDu’s fallacious denunciations that consists of simply a link here is more useful than ignoring the comment entirely and hoping that the damage done is minimal.
Show me just one.
You could easily influence me with actual arguments.
What is your suggestion then? How do I get out? Delete all of my posts, comments and website like Roko?
Seriously, if it wasn’t for assholes like wedrifid I wouldn’t even bother anymore and just quit. The grandparent was an attempt at honesty, trying to leave. Then that guy comes along claiming that most of my submissions consisted of “persuasive denunciations”. Someone as him who does nothing else all the time. Someone who never argues for his case.
ETA Ah fuck it all. I’ll take another attempt and log out now and not get involved anymore. Happy self-adulation.