The point I was trying to make is that much of the rationality community has nothing to do with the community’s stated values.
Yes, this is true, and also implies that the rationality community should be replaced with something very different, according to its stated goals. (Did you think I didn’t think that?)
So, in stating as though a fact about EA your personal impression of it based on Sarah’s blog post as if that means something unique about EA that isn’t true about other human communities, you’ve argued for too much.
I don’t think it’s unique! I think it’s extremely, extremely common for things to become aesthetic identity movements! This makes the phenomenon matter more, not less!
I have about as many beefs with the rationality movement as I do with the EA movement. I am commenting on this post because Ben already wrote it and I had things to add.
It’s possible that I should feel more moral pressure than I currently do to actively (not just, as a comment on other people’s posts) say what’s wrong about the current state of the rationality community publicly. I’ve already been saying things privately. (This is an invitation to try morally pressuring me, using arguments, if you think it would actually be good for me to do this)
Thanks for acknowledging my point about the rationality community. However, I was trying to get across more generally that I think the ‘aesthetic identity movement’ model might be lacking. If a theory makes the same predictions everywhere, it’s useless. I feel like the ‘aesthetic identity movement’ model might be one of those theories that is too general and not specific enough for me to understand what I’m supposed to take away from its use. For example:
So, the United States of America largely isn’t actually about being a land of freedom to which the world’s people may flock (which requires having everyone’s civil liberties consistently upheld, e.g., robust support for the rule of law, and not adding noise to conversations about these), it’s an aesthetic identify movement around the Founding Fathers as a central node, similar to, e.g., most popular environmentalism (which, for example, opposes nuclear power despite it being good for the environment, because nuclear power is discordant with the environmentalism identity/aesthetics, and Greenpeace is against it). This makes sense as an explanation of the sociological phenomenon, and also implies that, according to the stated value of America, America ought to be replaced with something very, very different.
Maybe if all kinds of things are aesthetic identity movements instead of being what htey actually say they are, I wouldn’t be as confused, if I knew what I am supposed to do with this information.
An aesthetic identity movement is one where everything is dominated by how things look on the surface, not what they actually do/mean in material reality. Performances of people having identities, not actions of people in reality. To some extent this is a spectrum, but I think there are attractor states of high/low performativity.
It’s possible for a state not to be an aesthetic identity movement, e.g. by having rule of law, actual infrastructure, etc.
It’s possible for a movement not to be an aesthetic identity movement, by actually doing the thing, choosing actions based on expected value rather than aesthetics alone, having infrastructure that isn’t just doing signalling, etc.
Academic fields have aesthetic elements, but also (some of the time) do actual investigation of reality (or, of reasoning/logic, etc) that turns up unexpected information.
Mass movements are more likely to be aesthetic identity movements than obscure ones. Movements around gaining resources through signalling are more likely to be aesthetic identity movements than ones around accomplishing objectives in material reality. (Homesteading in the US is an example of a historical movement around material reality)
(Note, EA isn’t only as aesthetic identity movement, but it is largely one, in terms of percentage of people, attention, etc; this is an important distinction)
It seems like the concept of “aesthetic identity movement” I’m using hasn’t been communicated to you well; if you want to see where I’m coming from more in more detail, read the following.
Yes, this is true, and also implies that the rationality community should be replaced with something very different, according to its stated goals. (Did you think I didn’t think that?)
I don’t think you didn’t think that. My question was to challenge you to answer why you, and the others if you would feel comfortable speaking to their perspectives, focus so much of your attention on EA instead of the rationality community (or other communities perhaps presenting the same kind and degree of problems), if you indeed understand they share similar problems, and posing similarly high stakes (e.g., failure modes of x-risk reduction).
I asked because it’s frustrating to me how inconsistent with your own efforts here to put way more pressure on EA than rationality. I’m guessing part of the reason for your trepidation in the rationality community is because you feel a sense of how much disruption it could cause, and how much risk nothing would change either. The same thing has happened when, not so much you, but some of your friends have criticized EA in the past. I was thinking it was because you are socially closer to the rationality community that you wouldn’t be as willing to criticize them.
I am not as invested in the rationality as a community as I was in the past. So, while I feel some personal responsibility to seek to analyze the intellectual failure modes of rationality, I don’t feel much of a moral urge anymore for correcting its social failure modes. So, I lack motivation to think through if it would be “good” or not for you to do it, though.
I think I actually do much more criticism of the rationality community than the EA community nowadays, although that might be invisible to you since most of it is private. (Anyway, I don’t do that much public criticism of EA either, so this seems like a strange complaint about me regardless)
Well, this was a question more about your past activity than the present activity, and also the greater activity of the same kind of some people you seem to know well, but I thought I would take the opportunity to ask you about it now. At any rate, thanks for taking the time to humour me.
My question was to challenge you to answer why you, and the others if you would feel comfortable speaking to their perspectives, focus so much of your attention on EA instead of the rationality community (or other communities perhaps presenting the same kind and degree of problems), if you indeed understand they share similar problems, and posing similarly high stakes (e.g., failure modes of x-risk reduction).
It doesn’t seem to me like anyone I interact with is still honestly confused about whether and to what extent e.g. CFAR can teach rationality, or rationality provides the promised superpowers. Whereas some people still believe a few core EA claims (like the one the OP criticizes) which I think are pretty implausible if you just look at them in conjunction and ask yourself what else would have to be true.
If you or anyone else want to motivate me to criticize the Rationality movement more, pointing me at people who continue to labor under the impression that the initial promises were achievable is likely to work; rude and condescending “advice” about how the generic reader (but not any particular person) is likely to feel the wrong way about my posts on EA is not likely to work.
Yes, this is true, and also implies that the rationality community should be replaced with something very different, according to its stated goals. (Did you think I didn’t think that?)
Geeks, Mops, Sociopaths happened to the rationality community, not just EA.
I don’t think it’s unique! I think it’s extremely, extremely common for things to become aesthetic identity movements! This makes the phenomenon matter more, not less!
I have about as many beefs with the rationality movement as I do with the EA movement. I am commenting on this post because Ben already wrote it and I had things to add.
It’s possible that I should feel more moral pressure than I currently do to actively (not just, as a comment on other people’s posts) say what’s wrong about the current state of the rationality community publicly. I’ve already been saying things privately. (This is an invitation to try morally pressuring me, using arguments, if you think it would actually be good for me to do this)
Thanks for acknowledging my point about the rationality community. However, I was trying to get across more generally that I think the ‘aesthetic identity movement’ model might be lacking. If a theory makes the same predictions everywhere, it’s useless. I feel like the ‘aesthetic identity movement’ model might be one of those theories that is too general and not specific enough for me to understand what I’m supposed to take away from its use. For example:
Maybe if all kinds of things are aesthetic identity movements instead of being what htey actually say they are, I wouldn’t be as confused, if I knew what I am supposed to do with this information.
An aesthetic identity movement is one where everything is dominated by how things look on the surface, not what they actually do/mean in material reality. Performances of people having identities, not actions of people in reality. To some extent this is a spectrum, but I think there are attractor states of high/low performativity.
It’s possible for a state not to be an aesthetic identity movement, e.g. by having rule of law, actual infrastructure, etc.
It’s possible for a movement not to be an aesthetic identity movement, by actually doing the thing, choosing actions based on expected value rather than aesthetics alone, having infrastructure that isn’t just doing signalling, etc.
Academic fields have aesthetic elements, but also (some of the time) do actual investigation of reality (or, of reasoning/logic, etc) that turns up unexpected information.
Mass movements are more likely to be aesthetic identity movements than obscure ones. Movements around gaining resources through signalling are more likely to be aesthetic identity movements than ones around accomplishing objectives in material reality. (Homesteading in the US is an example of a historical movement around material reality)
(Note, EA isn’t only as aesthetic identity movement, but it is largely one, in terms of percentage of people, attention, etc; this is an important distinction)
It seems like the concept of “aesthetic identity movement” I’m using hasn’t been communicated to you well; if you want to see where I’m coming from more in more detail, read the following.
Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths
Identity and its Discontents
Naming the Nameless
On Drama
Optimizing for Stories (vs. Optimizing Reality)
Excerpts from a larger discussion about simulacra
(no need to read all of these if it doesn’t seem interesting, of course)
I will take a look at them. Thanks.
I don’t think you didn’t think that. My question was to challenge you to answer why you, and the others if you would feel comfortable speaking to their perspectives, focus so much of your attention on EA instead of the rationality community (or other communities perhaps presenting the same kind and degree of problems), if you indeed understand they share similar problems, and posing similarly high stakes (e.g., failure modes of x-risk reduction).
I asked because it’s frustrating to me how inconsistent with your own efforts here to put way more pressure on EA than rationality. I’m guessing part of the reason for your trepidation in the rationality community is because you feel a sense of how much disruption it could cause, and how much risk nothing would change either. The same thing has happened when, not so much you, but some of your friends have criticized EA in the past. I was thinking it was because you are socially closer to the rationality community that you wouldn’t be as willing to criticize them.
I am not as invested in the rationality as a community as I was in the past. So, while I feel some personal responsibility to seek to analyze the intellectual failure modes of rationality, I don’t feel much of a moral urge anymore for correcting its social failure modes. So, I lack motivation to think through if it would be “good” or not for you to do it, though.
I think I actually do much more criticism of the rationality community than the EA community nowadays, although that might be invisible to you since most of it is private. (Anyway, I don’t do that much public criticism of EA either, so this seems like a strange complaint about me regardless)
Well, this was a question more about your past activity than the present activity, and also the greater activity of the same kind of some people you seem to know well, but I thought I would take the opportunity to ask you about it now. At any rate, thanks for taking the time to humour me.
It doesn’t seem to me like anyone I interact with is still honestly confused about whether and to what extent e.g. CFAR can teach rationality, or rationality provides the promised superpowers. Whereas some people still believe a few core EA claims (like the one the OP criticizes) which I think are pretty implausible if you just look at them in conjunction and ask yourself what else would have to be true.
If you or anyone else want to motivate me to criticize the Rationality movement more, pointing me at people who continue to labor under the impression that the initial promises were achievable is likely to work; rude and condescending “advice” about how the generic reader (but not any particular person) is likely to feel the wrong way about my posts on EA is not likely to work.