denyeverywhere

Karma: 25

denyeverywhere 3 Apr 2024 20:37 UTC
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in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
Yes, I meant specifically the Bay Area scene, since that’s the only part of the LW community that’s accused of excluding e/acc-ers.

It’s interesting and relevant if you can say that in the NYC scene, this sort of thing is unheard of, and that you’re familiar enough with that scene to say so, but it isn’t 100% on point.

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 21:07 UTC
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in reply to: clone of saturn’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
I described my feelings about human extinction elsewhere.

However, unlike the median commenter on this topic, you seem to grant that e/acc exclusion is actually a real thing that actually happens. That is

I think the desire to exclude e/accs is mainly because of their attitude that human extinction is acceptable or even desirable,

is a strange thing to say if there was not, in fact, an actual desire among LW party hosts in Berkeley. So inasmuch as my doubts about the truth of this have been raised by other respondents, would you mind clarifying
1. If you do in fact believe that e/acc exclusion from LW parties is a real phenomenon.
2. What kind of experience this is based on.

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 21:01 UTC
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in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
Would you describe yourself as familiar with the scene at all? You seem to imply that you doubt that e/acc exclusion is an actual thing, but is that based on your experience with the scene?

I’m not suggesting that you’re wrong to doubt it (if anything I was most likely wrong to believe it), I just want to clarify what info I can take from your doubt.

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 20:55 UTC
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in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
This is a good point, but I don’t intuitively see that it’s particularly strong evidence that it must be unusual. I would expect an event like this to have more explicit rules than the average party.

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 20:36 UTC
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in reply to: Ben Pace’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
This seems like good evidence and I don’t think you would make it up.

I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that Beff & co are exaggerating/full-of-it/otherwise-inaccurate.

Possibly the Aella thing was an anomaly, but also the thing that they actually really wanted to go to, and they’re inaccurately (although not necessarily dishonestly) assuming it to be more widespread than it actually is.

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 8:30 UTC
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in reply to: Ben Pace’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
Would you describe yourself as plugged into the LW party scene in Berkeley?

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 6:17 UTC
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in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
I wrote a long reply to your points, but ultimately decided it was a derail to original topic. I’ll PM you just for fun though.

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 5:45 UTC
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in reply to: Brendan Long’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?

I don’t think there’s anything misleading about that. Building AI that kills everyone means you never get to build the immortality-granting AI.

I didn’t say it wasn’t sensible. I said describing it that way was misleading.

If your short-term goal is in fact to decelerate the development of AI, describing this as “accelerating the development of Friendly AI” is misleading, or at least confused. What you’re actually doing is trying to mitigate X-risk. In part you are doing this in the hopes that you survive to build Friendly AI. This makes sense except for the part where you call it “acceleration.”

Incidentally, people don’t seem to say “Friendly AI” anymore. What’s up with that?

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 5:34 UTC
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in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
Thanks, this is extremely helpful. Having a clearer definition of how e/acc is understood to LW makes this much easier to think about.

Just for fun, I’ll quibble: I would add to my list of e/acc heresies

Related to previous: Those who think that the wrong human having power over other humans is the thing we need to worry about.

Insofar as I genuinely believe that to some extent, various actors are trying to take advantage of sincerely-held beliefs by LWers in the importance of decel-until-alignment to craft rules which benefit them and their short-term interests in money and power. This is bad, but also people do this sort of thing in our society all the time so you need to have perspective and recognize that it’s not the literal end of the world. I don’t know if I would say it’s the thing we need to worry about, but it’s more likely to cause harm now, whereas AGI is not.

Those like Beff Jezos, who think human extinction is an acceptable outcome.

I’d say it was an acceptable risk, and one that we’re running anyway. It’s reasonable to increase the risk slightly in the short run to reduce it in the long run. Is there an outcome with human extinction which I would also consider good? That’s kind of hard to say. Like I think Neanderthal extinction was an acceptable outcome. So clearly “all humans are extinct and now there are only posthumans” is acceptable, for some values of posthuman. I dunno, It’s all extremely academic and taking it too seriously feels silly.

Also

at least a Victorian NRC would be bad since they would decel the things that eventually made nuclear reactors possible

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. The reason I object to a Victorian NRC is not that I want to avoid decelerating atomic physics (I don’t even know if I ought to expect that). I object because it’s quixotic. Or just plain silly. There are no nuclear reactors! What are you people in HMNRC even doing all day? Theorycrafting reporting standards for SCRAM incidents? How sure are you that you actually, you know, need to do that?

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 2:31 UTC
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in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
I think it counts. And while it’s not the typical LW party, do you really think that prohibition says nothing about the scene? That seems like an odd opinion to me.

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 2:24 UTC
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in reply to: Brendan Long’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
I think rationalists generally agree that speeding up the development of AGI (that doesn’t kill all of us) is extremely important

Didn’t Eli want a worldwide moratorium on AI development, with data center airstrikes if necessary?

Granted, I understood this to be on the grounds that we were at the point that AGI killing us was a serious concern. But still, being in favor of “speeding up AGI that doesn’t kill us” is kind of misleading if you think the plan should be
1. Slow down AGI to 0.
2. Figure out all of the alignment stuff.
3. Develop AGI with alignment as fast as possible.
I mean, sure, you want all 3 steps to happen as fast as possible, but that’s not why there’s a difference of opinion. There’s a reason why e/acc refer to the other side as “decels” and it’s not unwarranted IMO.

I would be more worried about getting kicked out of parties because you think “the NRC is a good thing”

Let’s say “An NRC would be a good thing (at least on the assumption that we don’t intend to be 100% libertarian in the short run)”. I’m not going to die on the hill of whatever they may have done recently.

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 1:36 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
Didn’t Aella explicitly reject e/acc’s from her gangbang on the grounds that they were philosophically objectionable?

denyeverywhere 2 Apr 2024 1:32 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: Do I count as e/acc for exclusion purposes?
I assume this is April Fools’ related, but I can’t really tell

It’s not.

I think there’s less cohesive leadership of LW parties than you seem to think

That sounds likely. To be fair, I’ve mostly heard of this from
- Beff Jezos & Beff-adjacent people whining about it on twitter
- Aella’s gangbang
And I probably adjusted too hard off of this. Like nobody goes around prominently saying “actually we don’t mind if e/acc show up, so long as they’re nice” that I know of, but there’s no reason to assume that they would.

Ask the host. If they’re unclear or unsure, go and see if you feel unwelcome or uncomfortable, and leave if so.

So my initial reaction to this was to feel slightly insulted, but I realize that probably wasn’t your intention.

I know how to go to parties. I’m not unusually awkward. I’m not a preacher. That’s not the problem here. I can usually get along with people as long as they’re not too nuts.

I asked this question because I believed that it very common for LW parties to specifically want to exclude people on philosophical grounds. If they do, and if their objection applies to me, I want them to succeed. I’ve heard stories of e/acc people trying to sneak into Berkeley parties incognito. That’s not my style.

Also, my model of the most likely circumstances where I was likely to attend such a party was an acquaintance—who recognized that I seemed like an LW kinda guy but wasn’t deeply familiar with my whole belief system—saying “Hey there’s this thing tonight we could go to.” So asking the host might not be practical; said host might already be drinking and playing board games or whatever degeneracy usually goes on. Thus if the e/acc ban was as widespread as I thought, it would make sense to know ahead of time.

denyeverywhere 19 Nov 2023 23:09 UTC
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in reply to: quetzal_rainbow’s comment on: “Why can’t you just turn it off?”
Would you leak that statement to the press if the board definitely wasn’t planning these things, and you knew they weren’t? I don’t see how it helps you. Can you explain?

I don’t have a strong opinion about Altman’s trustworthiness, but I can assume he just isn’t trustworthy and I still don’t get doing this.

denyeverywhere 15 Nov 2023 23:44 UTC
2 points
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on: Loudly Give Up, Don’t Quietly Fade

the Bystander Effect is dumb

It’s dumber than you think.

Social relations and presence of others predict bystander intervention: Evidence from violent incidents captured on CCTV

denyeverywhere 12 Nov 2023 0:38 UTC
−3 points
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in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: Who is Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) really, and how could he have done what he did? - three theories and a lot of evidence
What, you don’t think Plasmodum falciparium is a living being with a right to exist? Don’t be such a humanity chauvinist.

denyeverywhere 11 Nov 2023 23:11 UTC
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in reply to: quanticle’s comment on: The 6D effect: When companies take risks, one email can be very powerful.
I think we’ve gone well past the point of productivity on this. I’ve asked some lawyers for opinions on this. I’ll just address a few things briefly.

If the whistleblower doesn’t have evidence of the meeting taking place, and no memos, reports or e-mails documenting that they passed their concerns up the chain, it’s perfectly reasonable for a representative of the corporation to reply, “I don’t recall hearing about this concern.”

I agree this is true in general, but my point is limited to the cases where documentation would in fact exist were it not for the company’s communication policy or data retention policy. If there was a point in the Google case you brought up earlier where Google had attempted to cast doubt on a DOJ witness by pointing out the lack of corroborating evidence (which would have been deleted per Google’s policy), I’d strongly reconsider my opinion.

What the article about the case said was just that DOJ complained that it would like to have all the documentation that Google destroyed, and that this probably contained evidence which proved their case. It did not say that Google challenged DOJ witnesses on a lack of corroboration between their testimony and the discoverable record.

It doesn’t have to be the Google case. Any case where the defense tried to impeach a witness on grounds of lack of corroborating evidence where that evidence would have been intentionally destroyed by a data retention policy would do.

There are other things I disagree with, but as I said, we’re being unproductive.

denyeverywhere 11 Nov 2023 22:17 UTC
7 points
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on: Who is Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) really, and how could he have done what he did? - three theories and a lot of evidence

I’ve been trying to figure out how someone who appears to believe deeply in the principles of effective altruism could do what SBF did. … It seems important to me to seek an understanding of the deeper causes of this disaster to help prevent future such disasters.

There’s a part of my brain screaming “Why are you leaving yourself wide open to affinity fraud? Are you trying to ensure ‘SBF 2: This Time It’s Personal’ happens or what?” However, I’ll ask him to be quiet and explain.

The problem was that you should never go around thinking “Somebody who believes in EA wouldn’t screw me, therefore this investment must be safe.” Instead you should think “The rate of return on this investment is not possible without crime, therefore I don’t know why somebody who claims to be an EA would do this, but I don’t have to know, I just have to stay away.” Or as I said in response to Zvi’s book review

You have to think: this man wouldn’t offer me free candy just to get in his unmarked van, that doesn’t make sense. I wouldn’t give anyone candy for that. What’s going on here?

It doesn’t matter why something is too good to be true. If it is, it must be a lie, and thus bad. Don’t take the deal. In case it’s not clear “taking the deal” can mean more than just investing with FTX; it also encompasses other sorts of relationships one might get into with SBF or FTX, like taking their money or allowing them to be a public symbol of you.

The point here is that understanding human psychology and motivations, especially where the human you’re trying to understand might be trying to trick you, is way harder than just knowing what sorts of returns are possible on capital investments with given amounts of risk. You can try to understand the SBFs of the world in the hopes of being able to identify them, but why do all that extra work? Just don’t trust anyone who says they can make you a 50% return on your investment in a year with zero risk (or comparable risk to T-bills) because every single one of them is lying and committing crimes.

denyeverywhere 10 Nov 2023 18:05 UTC
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in reply to: Isaac King’s comment on: A free to enter, 240 character, open-source iterated prisoner’s dilemma tournament
But not much worse; against counterexamplebot, ringer tit-for-tat will defect (so almost full double-defect), and tit-for-tat will always cooperate, so for that match ringer tit-for-tat is down about 50 points (assuming 50 rounds so the score is 100-49). Ringer tit-for-tat then picks up 150 points for each match against the 2 ringers, and the score is now (300-349). And it’s only this close because the modified strategy is tit-for-tat rather than something more clever.

Also, this assumes that a bot even can defect specifically against ringer tit-for-tat. Insofar as ringer’s source is secret and the identification is a function of the source of both ringer and shill, this may not be possible. If I understood correctly we only have access to ourselves and our opponent during the match, so we can’t ask if some 3rd bot would always cooperate against our opponent, who would always defect against the 3rd.

denyeverywhere 10 Nov 2023 9:47 UTC
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in reply to: Isaac King’s comment on: A free to enter, 240 character, open-source iterated prisoner’s dilemma tournament

It seems unlikely to me that this ringer/shill strategy will be particularly good compared to the other options

It will absolutely be guaranteed to be better than equivalent strategies without ringer/shill. Remember that ringer/shill modifies an existing strategy like tit-for-tat. Ringer tit-for-tat will always beat tit-for-tat since it will score the same as tit-for-tat except when it goes up against shill tit-for-tat, where it will always get the best possible score.

This means that whatever the strongest ~160-character strategy is, the ringer/shill version will beat 2 more strategies than it. Intuitively, it seems unlikely that anyone will come up with a 240-character strategy which is that much stronger than the best ~160-character strategy. Partly this is because I suspect that the more sophisticated strategies that people will actually come up with will start running up against the execution time barrier and won’t have time to make positive use of all that complexity.

you haven’t provided a compelling reason why I need to disallow it.

You don’t need to disallow it, I’m just saying that it would be ideal if it could be disallowed. It could easily not be worth the trouble.