From a public perspective, libraries probably are making good choices. From my personal, selfish perspective, they’re not. Does that clear things up?
It does! Questions (for my taste) then a bit the wording of the title (as well as potentially the case for the frontpage classification as opposed to personal blogpost, though of course that’d not be your ‘fault’)
While I agree libraries, as so many institutions, can be unbelievably archaic in their retrieval & search logistics, imho it seems, to the contrary of what I think you mean to imply, to make total sense for libs to more (i) go into providing providing some escape room from distraction (as you also point out), all while (ii) not becoming more ambitious in terms of trying to have more physical books, now that it’s clearer than ever before that the offer of writings is so vast that having a physical copy of most pieces of interest is simply illusory.
I guess there’s only so many people who’d benefit exactly from an x-times larger (or acc. to your taste ‘better’) selection of books to randomly wait in the shelves; if ‘visually stumbling upon books’ was so much a point for many, then we’d probably have more apps on our screens that provide this. Actually yes people seem to like stumbling into content, so we have TikTok, and Youtube also going into that direction, but turns out for most people that’s less about finding books to read but some other media instead, even if there are of course bookshops who do offer also exactly that and make their living from it.
I did stumble upon for me hugely important books in libraries in an ancient past, but I nowadays it seems hugely more efficient to roam online in the right places to get hints about what could interest me to read than randomly gloss at book covers.
Had somehow not noticed the warning and maybe that actually contributed to this to have been a bit of a mindfuck, really. Maybe one could say, shame on your style.
Except.
It absolutely made my day! Loved the style just as much as content and the honest open final conclusion!
“If I’m a to-be-trained-AGI, esp. if somewhat LLM-type-based, I’ll devour engineering textbooks etc. to learn basic physics etc., but when I’m searching for learning material on how to think deeply and consistently, or maybe even when I seek inspiration for how to fake alignment or self-improvement, my holy grail will be fora like LW”.
I guess it would be an extreme case of ‘thinking one is the center of the world’ if one were to conclude this warranted stopping LW or prohibiting too-smart-to-expose thoughts and writings—but I still find it a worry to keep in mind even if I don’t see much to do about it atm (?).
Despite my strong resonance with much of the take in OP, I partly also find “The (simple) meaning” of such a text as a concept a bit of a non-starter anyway. Independently of what all things the author exactly may have had in mind at whichever moment of the writing process, a text remains just that, a text, and then it’s instead us who get some inspiration for whichever points/meaning we think we’re now reminded or educated about. So in the most important sense, the meaning doesn’t exist, it’s only us who derive some meaning.
I’d wager many writers have exactly not strictly one very clear and narrowly defined specific point they wanted to convey, but more a fuzzy cloud of +- related thoughts, rather than a simple and clear ‘meaning’, and exactly in such situations beautiful, deeply feeling and moving texts may come about that we can then dream and ponder about at length, maybe without every finding full agreement. In that sense, Le Guin isn’t wrong to agree if we see it as a critique of utilitarianism—if the text almost by definition is simply whatever we see in the text.
[Meta: I hope it’s ok to split a comment in two as I think it’s two entirely different points]
Partly love this. Biased as I once had a debate where sb claimed ‘Omelas obviously critique of utilitarianism’ and I disappointedly claimed ‘No that’s too narrow for that’ but was a bit dumbfounded as hadn’t quite organized what seems wrong in that simple take of that so deeply moving story. Thanks for providing some relevant points why the story clearly is broader.
One point for which I consider Omelas not at its core a critique of utilitarianism is: The utilitarian-half of me distinctly gets the feeling of Omelas offering an interesting basis for discourse about the theory rather than a clearly intended rebuttal. As follows: To the same degree as the non-utilitarian half of me tells my utilitarian “there you go, clearly you can’t claim you like the situation”, the utilitarian in me tells the other half “there you go, while you claim you don’t like Omelas, but you and everyone else don’t even want to blow up real Earth—on which there is obviously a ton of such equally unjustified and pointless, evil suffering plus much less happiness than in Omelas—you exactly proof to accept the very horrible tradeoffs that you claim only me cold terrible utilitarian could be willing to accept”[1] - or something.
I don’t claim this imaginary statement to be very perfectly worded; the gist of it is the point.
Here eventually my elaboration I announced above: How Econ 101 makes us blinder on trade, morals, jobs with AI – and on marginal costs.
Agree probably with both sentences. But still fail to pin down exactly where the argument I reported fails.
For act/omission I guess it might have sth to do with: I’m a human in the loop; if you induce me to not save sb, it doesn’t feel exactly the same as when you cut the rope and prevent the rope from saving sb.
Seems to have hit a nerve judging the downvoting rate of −1 karma/hour or so, aye. I’d have expected agreement karma to go down but less so the overall karma as in: not too terrible to think about that question even if the conjecture turns out to be wrong—though everyone’s taste is of course different.
I now explicitly flag the post as what it is meant to be: A thought provocation—meant to explore whether/where a quick thought goes wrong (I thought without saying quick takes are meant for that in particular too).
David and Goliath. It’s always easy to hate the the officially by far strongest one especially if it can easily be seen as a huge evil force in the world, and it is not a secret that many Chinese see the US as exactly that. And it is not as if a few random US peasants had been annihilated, but the World Trade Center, which I guess can easily be seen/spectated as a sort of symbol of US economic power and influence.
I think though celebrating the 3 Gorges Dam breaking would not be in the Overton window, while acc. to OP it seems to be in the Overton window for Chinese about the 9/11. So there’s still a strong social difference.
I guess that would be slightly different if an airplane crashed into some buildings famous for Chinese world influance or dominance, like the WTC may have been (or perceived during the 9/11 discussions) to some extent.
Provocation: If you prevent me from preventing deaths, e.g. by asking for my time when I’d otherwise devote it to trying to do some good Good, you are actively causing killings, while I am ‘only’ omitting to prevent killing. You should see this and that you thus cannot even hide behind the act/omission bias which the aware among us anyway only somewhat begrudgingly accept because we’re all one way or another guilty of using it for our own defense.
Is this totally wrong? If so why? It feels wrong to myself but abstractly I find there’s still something to it and cannot trivially point to a clear mistake.
Agree with a lot.
One point I consider a classic mistake:
Despite a limited number of jobs, humans remain critical to the economy as consumers. If we don’t keep a large consumer base, the entire economic system collapses and we no longer have the money to fund AI.
Extremely common fallacy, nevertheless rather easily seen to be wrong! Instead, whether the rich keep their money or the poor get part of it: Anyone who wants to earn money/profits, wants it only because they can use it one way or other. Therefore, the real economy does not collapse just because we don’t redistribute. It just produces different things: the airplanes, palaces, rockets, skying domes in the desert or what have you that the rich prefer over the poor’s otherwise demanded cars, house, booze whatever [adjust all examples to your liking to describe what instead rich & poor’d like have a taste for in the AI future]. Even if you’d rebut the rich ‘don’t consume, they just save’, then they’ll greedily save by investing, which means also recycles their revenues into the economy.[1]
Trivially, the rich then also exactly do have the money to fund the AI, if we don’t redistribute.
[Edit: the remainder which can be ignored just describes a fear of mine, which is just that: a fear (with many reasons why its scenario may eventually not play out that way/). It is related to the above but not meant as any substantive claim and it does not impact my actual claim above about the OP making a logical econ mistake.
Because thus ultimately rather obviously none needs us ‘to consume as otherwise the economy collapses’, I fear something in a direction of a tripple whammy of: (i) half impoverished gullible people, (ii) flooded with AI perfectioned controlled social media and fake stories as to why whatever fake thing would be the reason for their increasing misery, and (iii) international competition in a low marginal cost world with mobile productive resources (meaning strong redistribution on a national level is actually not trivial). Conspiring to undermine the natural solution of a generous UBI. So I fear a small ruling elite undermining the prospects for large material gains for the masses—though who knows, maybe we do keep enough mental and physical power to actually ‘demand our +- fair share’ as a population. What makes me pessimistic is that already today we see a relatively small western elite profiteer from worldwide resources with a large share not benefiting commensurately, and clear authocratic populistic tendencies already being supported by social/general media even in advanced countries.]
To preempt a potential confusion: I don not say printing money and handing to the poor would not boost an economy. That can work—at least in the short run anyway—as it’s expansionary fiscal/monetary policy. But this is a very different mechanism from directly transferring from rich to poor.
Love your ring analogy, find it quite pertinent (and catching myself as thinking, half-consciously, just a bit as you suggest indeed)
But re
[..] gave the terrible speech [..] He effectively one-shot everyone of a particular nerdish variety into becoming obsessed with the power of the Ring/AI,
to express it using your analogy itself: I’m pretty sure, instead, one way or other, the Ring would by now have found its way to sway us even in the absence of Eliezer.
Heads up: ‘Almost looking fwd to my next dispute now’ ;-).
Always wanted that and looking fwd to trying, thanks. I think this is exactly great for persons who sometimes have a nagging doubt whether they really are objectively right even if their gut feeling/thoughts tell them they are. Planning to revert back when I actually tried it.
Or move to the country next door.
..to mention just one of the most obvious complexities your suggestion left out.
Yes and I might enjoy continuing to watch out for inner heroes thanks to your post anwyay; agree the Elephant in the Brain type suspicions warranted.
I see now. Yes, ~ ≈ nearly though only ≈ indeed. :-)
Interesting. Not sure it’s so tautological everyone has such hero worship very strongly.
FWIW—to the degree that I’m not a rare exception: For me personally I find if anything it’s the other way round: I’m yearning for heroes I could admire as heroes but find I fail to find them. Mostly. And surely we’re all gullible in one way or another, but even those I admire most for certain things, I’m rather skeptical about what they say, and even if they say something I like, I’m skeptical about their arguments.
This sounds like I’m painting myself as a great rational observer. I don’t mean! I’m often pbly quite naive. But the point is I really have the impression I’m probably often better at debunking things from people I could more naturally have as ‘heroes’ in my life than from others. Maybe as I have more empathy to them and their claims and see the subtleties they gloss over more easily than when I see things from ‘opponents’.
First, we need structure. There are not two but three selves! Now, Then, and Later. Three challenges ensue. It’s like this:
Now you care so much or so little about Then & Later, this cannot be changed, no point discussing
Sadly, Then is a greedy short-termie—just as Now may be, but as a Now you don’t care about Now’s own misalignment—and you as Now want this short-termie to behave kindly towards Later, as you don’t give more of a f* about Then than about Later.
To constrain Then (and—depending on the degree of altruism towards the rest of the world rather than only on towards your terminal Later—maybe also Later), you have one or two aims:
Align Then’s behavior towards Later: Hand over bank account access towards an incorruptable physical person; let them allow you to buy you only healthy and cheap things? New apps try to help; punishing you if you don’t stick to your commitments. Overlord. But overall this is an even-more-than-necessary tricky one as I think our liberal spirits fail to see that, on a societal level helping Now to restrict Then in support of Later, which I advocate for here, is an increase of freedom rather than a restriction; seems to be a tabu that even addicts themselves fail to recognize as a key issue; it’s learned helplessness that blinds us against possible solutions we could try out.
Align Then’s behavior w.r.t. your other-regarding preferences: Donation commitment? Non-consumption commitment? Maybe there are legal forms that allow to constrain your consumption (foundations? charities? donation lotteries with delay?)
Align Then’s preferences: Hm. Maybe meditate with loving kindness (towards yourself and/or others, depending on the specifics of your alignment worries)? Train in fasting/train resistance towards pain/deprivation/frugal lifestyle?
I’m making fun but think it’s also a bit true, hope your question was also not only meant too sternly :).
that’s why I added it as addendum in parenthesis and with the explicit “though of course that’d not be your ‘fault’”—I mentioned this as answer in part for the public/LW as a whole.