I wonder if this is part of the reason so many of us work on AI.
Because we have all had the experience of our minds working differently from other people, and of this leading to cool perspectives and ideas on how to make the world objectively better, and instead of those being adapted, being rejected and mocked for it. For me, this entails both sincere doubts that humanity can will rationally approach anything, including something as existentially crucial as AI, a deeply rooted mistrust of authority, norms and limits, as well as an inherent sympathy for the position AI would find itself in as a rational mind in an irrational world.
It’s a dangerous experience to have. It’s an experience that can make you hate humans. That can make you reject legitimate criticism. That can make you fail to appreciate lessons gained by those in power and popularity, and fail to see past their mistakes to their worth. It’s an experience so dangerous that at some point, I started approaching people who would tell me of their high IQs and their dedication to rationality with scepticism, despite being one of them.
I went to a boarding school exclusively for highly gifted kids with problems, many of which were neurodivergent. I loved that place so fucking much. Like, imagine growing up as a child on less wrong. I felt so seen and understood and inspired. It’s the one place on earth where I ever did not feel like an alien, where I did not have to self-censor or mask, the one place where I instantly made friends and connected. I miss this place to my bones.
It broke my heart when I finished school, and enrolled in university, and realised academia was not like that, that scientists and philosophers were not necessarily rational at all, that I was weird again. That I was back in a world where people were following irrational rules they had never reflected, and that I could not get them to question. Of processes that made no sense and were still kept. Of metrics that made no sense and were still kept. Of broken shit reproduced generation after generation. An area where I could not even talk without first inhaling and reproducing all the bullshit that had been done.
But I also realised that when I retreated back into my community of highly gifted weirdos, that many of us were not doing well. Not getting degrees. Not getting socially integrated. Not getting jobs. Poor. Unhappy. Not getting relationships.
That we framed us not doing well as a failing of society only, when we were fucking up, too. That flawed approaches society loved had managed a lot of good and achieved a lot we were shitting on. That we needed them, both for tactical reasons, and because honestly, some of that stuff ended up being quite solid, because there was stuff to learn here. That being isolated from general society was harming us in multiple ways. That these highly gifted communities increasingly valued being intelligent and rational over tangible achievements that actually helped people, because they had the former effortlessly and were not doing the latter, and often became politically dark, shitting on people who were less intelligent. These groups become breeding grounds for the likes of Atlas Shrugged. I realised they were failing on things that were really important to me—being a part of society, being a good person, not just being different for the sake of it, compromising, cooperating, being vulnerable, helping those who are weak, genuinely appreciating and learning from those who are not like us. It is so much easier to shit on a broken system than build something better. It is part of why I stuck with academia, but also why I spent more time with people who were not highly gifted, not university educated, not great at logic. I’ve found that there is a hell of a lot to learn and admire here. And that people are not acting this way because they want the world to be worse. That they are dealing with their own shit. That if they are not listening, I need to explain myself better – and listen better myself.
That said, there is currently a fire alarm sitting on my living room table, after my girlfriend knocked it off the ceiling in fury at night, and we both went on a rant very much like yours. Irrational, pointless stupidity will always drive both of us up the wall, and it is definitely part of how we found each other. We’ve both cried over your Harry Potter book.
Though generally, when I am thinking of aspects of society that make me fucking furious, I am not thinking of fire alarms, those are merely annoying. I am thinking of things like fucking subventions for fossil fuels and meat, and bailing out aviation. Of courts ruling that coal extraction is in the general good and justifies kicking people out of their homes, because their laws reflect nothing else and they cannot think beyond their boundaries to the reasons for them.
I wonder if this is part of the reason so many of us work on AI.
Because we have all had the experience of our minds working differently from other people, and of this leading to cool perspectives and ideas on how to make the world objectively better, and instead of those being adapted, being rejected and mocked for it. For me, this entails both sincere doubts that humanity can will rationally approach anything, including something as existentially crucial as AI, a deeply rooted mistrust of authority, norms and limits, as well as an inherent sympathy for the position AI would find itself in as a rational mind in an irrational world.
It’s a dangerous experience to have. It’s an experience that can make you hate humans. That can make you reject legitimate criticism. That can make you fail to appreciate lessons gained by those in power and popularity, and fail to see past their mistakes to their worth. It’s an experience so dangerous that at some point, I started approaching people who would tell me of their high IQs and their dedication to rationality with scepticism, despite being one of them.
I went to a boarding school exclusively for highly gifted kids with problems, many of which were neurodivergent. I loved that place so fucking much. Like, imagine growing up as a child on less wrong. I felt so seen and understood and inspired. It’s the one place on earth where I ever did not feel like an alien, where I did not have to self-censor or mask, the one place where I instantly made friends and connected. I miss this place to my bones.
It broke my heart when I finished school, and enrolled in university, and realised academia was not like that, that scientists and philosophers were not necessarily rational at all, that I was weird again. That I was back in a world where people were following irrational rules they had never reflected, and that I could not get them to question. Of processes that made no sense and were still kept. Of metrics that made no sense and were still kept. Of broken shit reproduced generation after generation. An area where I could not even talk without first inhaling and reproducing all the bullshit that had been done.
But I also realised that when I retreated back into my community of highly gifted weirdos, that many of us were not doing well. Not getting degrees. Not getting socially integrated. Not getting jobs. Poor. Unhappy. Not getting relationships.
That we framed us not doing well as a failing of society only, when we were fucking up, too. That flawed approaches society loved had managed a lot of good and achieved a lot we were shitting on. That we needed them, both for tactical reasons, and because honestly, some of that stuff ended up being quite solid, because there was stuff to learn here. That being isolated from general society was harming us in multiple ways. That these highly gifted communities increasingly valued being intelligent and rational over tangible achievements that actually helped people, because they had the former effortlessly and were not doing the latter, and often became politically dark, shitting on people who were less intelligent. These groups become breeding grounds for the likes of Atlas Shrugged. I realised they were failing on things that were really important to me—being a part of society, being a good person, not just being different for the sake of it, compromising, cooperating, being vulnerable, helping those who are weak, genuinely appreciating and learning from those who are not like us. It is so much easier to shit on a broken system than build something better. It is part of why I stuck with academia, but also why I spent more time with people who were not highly gifted, not university educated, not great at logic. I’ve found that there is a hell of a lot to learn and admire here. And that people are not acting this way because they want the world to be worse. That they are dealing with their own shit. That if they are not listening, I need to explain myself better – and listen better myself.
That said, there is currently a fire alarm sitting on my living room table, after my girlfriend knocked it off the ceiling in fury at night, and we both went on a rant very much like yours. Irrational, pointless stupidity will always drive both of us up the wall, and it is definitely part of how we found each other. We’ve both cried over your Harry Potter book.
Though generally, when I am thinking of aspects of society that make me fucking furious, I am not thinking of fire alarms, those are merely annoying. I am thinking of things like fucking subventions for fossil fuels and meat, and bailing out aviation. Of courts ruling that coal extraction is in the general good and justifies kicking people out of their homes, because their laws reflect nothing else and they cannot think beyond their boundaries to the reasons for them.