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VelveteenAmbush

Prime Intellect did nothing wrong

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joined 2022 September 05 02:49:35 UTC 

				
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VelveteenAmbush


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong

				
				
				

				

					3 followers  

					follows 1 user  

					joined 2022 September 05 02:49:35 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 411


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm no expert either, but isn't Crimea pretty easily embargoed? IIRC, Ukraine recaptured Kharkiv by threatening Russia's supply lines, and I don't know why they couldn't do the same to Crimea.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But national sovereigns don't internalize the costs of their mistakes or reap the rewards of their enterprise like private proprietors do.




Life is generally better for the head of state and leading members of government when the government is popular than when it isn't, and good stewardship of national resources and policy is generally an effective path to popularity.




It does not explain the value of assigning such entities sovereignty over such areas in the first place.




Maybe it would be helpful (both here and generally in your commentary) if you made more of an effort to state your thesis directly instead of only implying it by criticizing other comments for what you view as the negative space of your unstated thesis.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				FTX is Rationalism's Chernobyl
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think utilitarianism should play a very small but positive part of one's moral framework, a tiny minority vote in one's moral parliament, but committing to donate 10% of one's income to the other side of the planet is messed up, and asks to be reciprocated by your neighbors and fellow countrymen treating you as no more deserving of moral consideration than a stranger on the other side of the planet. If one see an EA type drowning in a pond, I don't exactly endorse this approach, but I think there would be a certain cold reciprocity to walk whistling past, clean in conscience that one has already dedicated at least 10% of one's attention to one's neighbors, friends and community.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well... if a gay man wants the same chance to score dates from the publicly facing social media profiles that straight man have, then he does need to make his preferences known, no?


Also... isn't marriage intrinsically public, and doesn't that reveal one's sexual preferences, at least in the sense of which sex one prefers?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The state is "not entitled to deny people their exit rights". This isn't just a libertarian fantasy principle. The ability to opt out of existence should be table stakes for most moralities. Nobody would begrudge someone being trapped in an inescapable room and being raped day in and day out for committing suicide. Your personal line will be different from almost anyone else's.




This is a libertarian fantasy principle. I agree with permitting euthanasia for people who are terminally ill, living with untreatable chronic pain, or severely disabled (e.g. paraplegia and quadraplegia), but extending these edge cases to "anyone who wants to die" is a really fringe libertarian belief. Suicide is possible as a solo act, and the transgressive barrier implicit in the solo act is a useful check on people who would otherwise make the decision too lightly. If we reach a point where suicide is no longer possible as a solo act (quadraplegics, or some sort of post-singularity future where an uploaded mind would require admin access to delete itself) then all of this changes, but as long as people can slit their own wrists in the bathtub, the state and the medical system have no business trying to make it a more desirable option than it already is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, that's pretty much why I'm not a libertarian, and why even those who are need to do more than point and say "externality" to justify banning something. The idea that, statistically, people who do something are more likely to commit a crime is a justification to ban it under a putatively libertarian framework refutes the framework by basically the same logic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
All of these decisions lead to large externalities. If you are willing to infer a state interest in preventing fentanyl use but not suicide, then I think you are just wrestling your putative libertarian framework to fit your object level support for suicide.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I find the idea of euthanizing a healthy young person rather morally revolting. If they want to kill themselves, they should just do it




Jeez, call me old fashioned but I think we should stop them, involuntarily commit them and treat their mental illness.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In this year's primary, he endorsed Masters, Walker and Oz -- three neophyte politicians with manifest weaknesses -- over their more experienced competitors. All three prevailed in the primary, and all three seem to be headed for defeat tonight. All three races should have been eminently winnable.


In 2020, he made delusional claims that the election was stolen from him, and he publicly pressured Pence to basically abuse his power as VP to steal the election for Trump. This occurred before the two senate runoff races in Georgia, both of which should have gone GOP (based on fundamentals and based on the expectation that thermostatic turnout would favor the GOP as being energized to oppose Biden's recent win), but both of which ended up going to the Dems, giving Biden control of the Senate.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't care about the rest of his argument, I care about the part that was the subject of this dispute, since this dispute is what we are discussing. Was that not the part that you think is at least disputable in its moral or intellectual wrongness? Or do you believe the courts should overlook this clear case of defamation because he separately made some other arguments that were reasonable?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don’t see indisputable evidence he’s morally or intellectually wrong here.




You think the Sandy Hook parents are crisis actors engaged in a literal conspiracy theory to falsely persuade the nation that their children were murdered en masse while attending elementary school? Or you think that this claim is reasonably disputable, either morally or intellectually?


Please let's not confuse Alex Jones's behavior with the comparatively bland claim that school shootings are a political opportunity to take away gun rights. The court proceedings did not concern that claim.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Suppose an online fad were persuading children to have their left arms amputated, and the power of the state dedicated itself to facilitating the amputations and to retaliating against parents who tried to interfere. What argument against that public policy would you consider to be fair, if any?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There are plenty of examples of Jewish intellectuals explicitly agitating for the interests of the Jewish community in ways that would render an analogous white person unfit for polite company. There are NGOs that exist explicitly to further Jewish interests, and there is even an explicit Jewish ethnostate. Jewish people network with other Jewish people through their synagogues and holidays, Jewish parents often encourage their children to marry within the faith, and I doubt you could find many Jewish people who would deny that their social circles are disproportionately Jewish.


What manner of further evidence are you looking for? A survey in which Jewish hiring managers obliviously admit to giving Jewish applicants an unfair advantage? If something along those lines is your requirement, then you have constructed an epistemological fortress.


To make my own position clear, I acknowledge and respect the innate intellectual advantage of the Jewish population (although I vaguely suspect one could slice the "white" community in America more finely to derive a genetic cluster among white people who are equally performant and equally sizeable, if one had the inclination and data to do so), and do not view them as parasitic in any way. Their achievements in science, technology, art and business are genuine and mostly work to everyone's immense benefit. We would all be impoverished if Einstein had never existed, and ten thousand more lesser known exceptional individuals like him in every walk of life, none of whom can be explained by nepotism.


I do take exception to the Jewish community's unnecessary persistence in maintaining a parallel culture within America, conceptualizing and advocating for its interests as distinct from the white population. Intentionally resisting assimilation and pursuing exclusive ethnic interests is a defection in a multiethnic society, and it is toxic for the country in similar fashion to white identity politics. Antisemitism is in part a response to this defection, and not entirely unjustified.


The analogy I draw is to Survivor. In Survivor, one of the most powerful tactics in the chaotic early game is to form a rock-solid two-person alliance, because two strategically aligned votes make a powerful coalition in an unorganized field of monads. Thus the rational play in the early game is to seek out and punish players who have formed such a two-person alliance, as a means of defense against their manipulations.


Likewise if an ethnicity organizes and advocates for its interests, one should expect other ethnic groups to recognize the inherent division in loyalty and to object, reactively (in this case with antisemitism) or proactively (via an exclusive ethnogenesis of their own, e.g. white identity politics). The salience of whether "Jews are white" is likely a product of these reactive and proactive responses to a recognition of an ethnic group's defection.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't imagine this argument being persuasive to any but the most extreme libertarian -- the type who thinks that recreational fentanyl, consensual incest and consensual cannibalism should be legal. If that's you, then yeah, you're internally consistent, and I'm not sure what better argument to make against your position other than that your theory permits such self-evidently depraved outcomes as legalizing fentanyl, incest, cannibalism, and the killing of depressed but otherwise healthy 23-year-olds.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Lets play with a hypothetical: is it actually good for republicans in 2024 if trump gets hung out to dry by the court battles he's entangled in?




If somehow the court battles disable Trump so that he loses the primary or doesn't even run? Absolutely! Trump is a terrible politician who repeatedly demonstrates negative coattails. He won a general election once, by a hair, in 2016, against a historically unpopular candidate, following two terms of Democratic control of the White House. He is ineffective even when he is in office, and he is so polarizing that he generates historic energy among the Democrats to oppose him.


DeSantis is the alternative. He's a brilliant politician who knows how to win, who knows how to govern competently, and who knows how to use the levers of government to secure his partisan goals. He walks on water. The only thing he may be unable to do is defeat Trump in the GOP primary.


But I don't think the court battles will disable Trump. Every time the Dems go too far and get too petty in persecuting him, he looks like a martyr and the GOP electorate rallies around him. The Dems are not stupid. They can see this effect play out, and will use it to their advantage. All they have to do is persecute him as loudly and unfairly as possible. I genuinely think this is the reason that Garland started this ridiculous investigation over classified information at Mar-a-lago. They can drag that out for the next two years, constantly keeping him in the headlines as the victim of Democratic overreach to manipulate the 2024 GOP primary and secure him as their opponent.


Even if Trump loses the primary, I don't put it past him to sabotage the GOP in the general election, possibly as a third party candidate.


The GOP is cursed by Trump's existence at this point. The best outcome for conservatives is if Trump dies of a heart attack as soon as possible.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Do you think he was not completely incorrect intellectually when he claimed that the massacre never occurred and the parents are just actors whose children weren't murdered while attending elementary school? Or that he was not completely incorrect morally when he claimed that?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are you really just overlooking the word "white" as though it's an unnecessary detail in this discussion?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Greetings Mottizens!
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hi everyone, so happy this site is up and running and hope we succeed in bringing over the community!


Can we have a "new site questions and feature requests" thread? I come bearing content along those lines.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If you don't uphold your principles in the face of "my business might suffer" or "I might get fired", then they aren't actually principles.




Martyring yourself doesn't do anyone any favors. If getting fired compromises your ability to implement your principle, then you should avoid getting fired and work to optimize the implementation of your principle instead.


And note that Jack Dorsey was instrumental in persuading Elon to buy Twitter in the first place.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Generally - india, japan, northern europe, central europe are different places, with different native cultures - what selective pressures would be present in all of them over the last ten generations (and some less than ten) that would that rapidly raise the genes for a tolerant and liberal culture from a brutish and reactionary one? At the same time?




Industrialization, of course. In an agrarian society, close cooperation with strangers isn't as important. In an industrial society, it is. Those who are predisposed against spending time professionally in close quarters with strangers are fine in an agrarian society but will be unable to earn a living in an industrial society. Their genes will be largely eliminated from each generation after the advent of industrialization. Three generations should be more than sufficient to change the character of a society.


We aren't talking about evolving a new organ or something. We're talking about weeding out or magnifying certain existing traits that are known to have significant heritable components. As a thought experiment, if only one in three blond people reproduced in each generation, I hope it's obvious that we'd dramatically reduce the proportion of blond people within three generations. It wouldn't take long at all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It's not going to get you anywhere.




I don't need to go anywhere; my views already won. The legal outcome is what it is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Contentions involving "reasonable belief of serious bodily injury" and similar legal distinctions are inherently more reasonable than denying that the Sandy Hook massacre even occurred. This isn't about left versus right, it's about Alex Jones being a uniquely clownish figure across both sides of the aisle, frequently telling lies that are absurd to a degree effectively unmatched in the world of US politics. I support gun rights too, for what it's worth. We don't actually have a difference of opinion on any of the related policy matters. The only difference between us here is the difference in depths that you and I are willing to stoop in defending ludicrous lies if they are directionally aligned with our policy preferences.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
He should sue them. But I stand firm that factual errors of this nature are objectively less crazy than claiming that the Sandy Hook Massacre literally did not occur.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That question would come down to whether the claims constituted defamation -- a standard which was unambiguously met by his actual claims.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Clearly the suffering is real unless you believe they are outright lying.




No, there's a third possibility, which is that they're sincere but deluded. Which we know is the case on many other axes, since depressive delusions arrive in the box with depression.




Most of us have no trouble believing in physical pain because we've all experienced it




There's also a mechanism that makes sense. Nerves send a pain signal to the brain, and brains translate that signal into the qualia of pain. Pain that originates within the brain is much harder to understand. Dysfunctions of the brain present a malfunctioning mind, as opposed to a properly functioning mind responding to a malfunctioning body. If the mind is compromised, we have every reason to treat its claims with suspicion.