“Eugenics” is not a bad word here. I’ve heard at least one person here confirm in so many words that they identify as a eugenicist and are into eugenics ideas.
I’ve seen that as well, multiple times. It’s worth mentioning that those people usually mean something different by eugenics than, for example, the average German. I think calling that cluster of ideas eugenics serves as a social signal.
Excerpt from my rant on this topic: “I think that the term mainly serves as a social signal. In this community, decoupling is a highly valued social norm. Contextualizing, on the other hand, is something for the weak, conventional or social justice minded. Yes, eugenics is a shorthand for cutting-edge reproductive and genetic technologies. But that can’t be the main purpose. It would be easy enough to use a different shorthand. There is, however, something unique that eugenics has to offer. It is a social repellent for those who are clinging “too tightly” to the historical context. Behind this hides an implicit insistence—you should give the benefit of the doubt to an otherwise reasonable person who seems to have uttered something unthinkable.
On some level, I am sympathetic to this social maneuver. It is draining to constantly be on guard because you don’t want to alienate a listener. Why not just shoo away heavy contextualizers? On another level, I’m annoyed. Why make it harder for people to listen to you on purpose? Even if they are normies! It’s so easy to misunderstand each other, even with the best intentions on all sides. If you explained your values and ideas patiently, your hot takes might morph into lukewarm opinions. Yes, people will call you a Nazi if you refer to yourself as a ‘eugenicist’. They will not give you a chance to explain, and to some extent that’s on them. But it’s you who made it easy for them to do so.”
Full rant here.
Complementary reading: Notes on Chess and AI. Or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, written by a top chess player. Ashe takes on the perspective of a teacher invested in amateurs improving their understanding of Go. The author of the chess post writes as a top competitor singularly focused on winning.
Notable quotes:
“The goal of playing chess is not to create art, not to show understanding, not to think or display strategical brilliance. The goal of playing chess is to win chess games. The top chess players use whatever resources they can, including copious amounts of computer use to deeply analyze every single variant and position.”
“But rather than seeing players today being captured by a sort of AI psychosis, top players are leveraging AI in incredible ways. When I look at the current crop of young elite players, they find original ideas, calculate incredibly deeply, and come with a mix of both strategic and swashbuckling styles. One commonly cited influence of computers is that players today find many more defensive resources than they used to.”
“Chess players are not rewarded for honesty, integrity, or artistic value. They are rewarded for winning chess games, and AI misuse, after serving a small sentence, does not seem to hinder winning in the long term.”
Some of my take-aways from comparing the posts: While Go amateurs sabotage their progress by cheating, the progress of the very best chess players is not impacted by online cheating with AI (Selection effects? Is this true for the very best Go players as well?). Chess culture has a more mature way of dealing with AI cheating. Chess professionals have to integrate AI into their training regimes to remain relevant.