BANNED USER: /comment/484167
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stoatherd
No bio...
User ID: 1961
Banned by: @naraburns
stoatherd
1d ago
I think it'd be fair to call their position the null hypothesis from which to argue from
Not in general, and certainly not for culture war issues. That's handing a gigantic unearned advantage to any political positions aligned with LLM biases, which are well documented.
Frontier models are definitely a form of evidence
Yes, in the same way that everything is evidence. But that doesn't make their opinion valuable when arguing stuff here.
If we're arguing over some factual point, e.g. "are tomatoes a vegetable?", it might make sense to invoke an LLM's response (though linking to an actual source is probably better). But when we're arguing over some high-level subjective thing (e.g. "who broke more norms, Biden or Trump?") then going "Claude agrees with me that Trump is worse!" is not useful evidence.
The point of this place is to actually discuss things, make arguments, and defend positions; not to invoke an LLM's opinion as an authority.
And the response you got from claude barely disagreed with MK
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mkc said that prediction markets were the best predictor.
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Claude said they are not the best predictor.
If mkc believes prediction markets are very good, that's fine. Calling them the most accurate is a deliberately strong (maximally strong) claim. Words do actually mean things. You don't get to make the strongest form of your claim for convenience, then swap it out for a weaker claim when "disproven".
stoatherd
1d ago
Let me try asking you again, as you've somehow ignored the important part of my comment.
Do you at least agree that, in principle, if I could show an LLM outputting beliefs you believe are wrong, that this would suffice to show that LLMs' high-level opinions shouldn't be cited as evidence on the Motte?
stoatherd
2d ago
I accept your apology for falsely attributing a bunch of claims to me.
I don't disagree much with Claude's take here!
Dude, I know. I actually agree with you on the object level. I'm trying to get you to understand that what LLMs believe should not be presented as evidence on the Motte.
You claimed that prediction markets are the best predictor.
Claude disagrees.
No one said "radical" disagreement. I'm solely pointing out that, according to Claude, you are wrong. (I actually back you over Claude here; that's my point!)
This is how it reads whenever someone else posts a comment, and you respond by going "well Claude says not-X". Claude saying not-X isn't relevant! It's just going "my LLM could beat up your LLM".
Do you at least agree that, in principle, if I could show an LLM outputting beliefs you believe are wrong (which I think I'vce done a couple of times by now), that this would suffice to show that LLMs' high-level opinions shouldn't be cited as evidence on the Motte?
stoatherd
2d ago
Yes, I do actually agree -- AFAICT, proper prediction markets consistently outperform other predictors in this domain.
My goal here is just to get magicalkittycat to acknowledge that Claude saying X shouldn't be used on the Motte as dispositive towards X being true.
I'd hoped that by bringing up an example where mkc and I actually agree on the object level (that prediction markets are very good, actually), this might be enough for mkc to recognise the point.
Unfortunately, this isn't what has happened.
stoatherd
2d ago
Stop lying.
You dismiss the prediction markets as fantasy
Stop lying. Where did I say that?
your own attempt at a defense admits they are really good
Stop lying. Where did I say that?
This is how you act anytime someone points out verifiable facts that go against you
Stop lying. Where did I say that?
Are you confusing me with a different user? Because none of what you've said is in my comment.
I actually think that prediction markets are very good. But my comment is about getting you to acknowledge that LLMs are not a source of evidence. This takes basic reading comprehension to understand, so I get that it's easier to make up a bunch of stuff I didn't say. But could you maybe try being honest for once, instead of just lying?
stoatherd
2d ago
the most accurate forecasting method we have
As you regularly invoke LLMs' opinions as evidence, I went ahead and asked Claude Opus 5.5:
Are prediction markets the most accurate forecasting method we have?
Its answer begins:
Not clearly. Prediction markets are among the best general-purpose forecasting tools, but the evidence doesn't support calling them the most accurate method overall. (... +500 words)
Claude made it clear that the answer varies based on topic, so I went and asked whether prediction markets are the best forecasting method for predicting who will win in a given state. Its answer:
In general, no single method is clearly the most accurate at predicting which party wins a US state. Markets, poll-based models and expert ratings perform about equally well, and averaging them tends to beat relying on any one.
Is this enough to get you to admit that LLMs' opinions aren't actually conclusive evidence?
You do, actually, have to pick one:
a) You were wrong to call prediction markets the most accurate forecasting method.
b) You shouldn't cite LLMs' opinions as evidence.
stoatherd
11d ago
an accidental release just happening to point to the wet market is incredibly odd too.
It's not even odd, let alone "incredibly odd". I hope Scott didn't say those exact words; it's foolish.
Does it really need explaining why a wet market is better for spreading a virus than an apartment complex?
In what apartment complex do you get:
- Thousands of people constantly brushing past each other
- Bodily fluids from many different animals, exposed to air and skin contact
- Organic materials passing between strangers
- Animals and animal products kept in close proximity with each other and humans
You're a virus, intent on spreading as much as possible. Do you want to spawn in (a) a wet market, or (b) an apartment complex?
It's utterly absurd to suggest that it just "happened" to be a wet market, pretty much the optimal place for a virus to spread. You know this, obviously.
The lab leak theory can either say "that's how well it was covered up" in which case okay you can just do that endlessly there is no beating an argument that lack of proof doesn't matter
Not an argument, which is why you gloss over it. And if "lack of proof" doesn't matter, your comment doesn't matter. Evidence is what matters, and that's a little more complicated than just scoffing at people.
stoatherd
11d ago
"I believe we have major issue X" directly suggests the line of action "let's try to counteract X". Where is that?
Everywhere you're refusing to look? Plenty of people are vocally against gain-of-function research entirely because of covid.
You have an incentive to pretend that this isn't happening, because you've constructed it as this bizarre presuppositionalist argument that lab leak proponents actually deeply believe in zoonosis. That isn't the same as it not actually happening.
stoatherd
11d ago
Choosing at random one of the many issues to respond to:
Lab leak theory proposes China killed almost 2 million people in the first year alone
... as does zoonosis. So, as you ask: where's the war? It seems like you have a missing mood.
stoatherd
1mo ago
There was that unrest in the UK after a Sikh man stabbed a guy to death
But that unrest had nothing to do with the proposition that Sikhs are all/mostly stabby.
The issue was that the police, who are ostensibly supposed to facilitate justice, handcuffed a dying man who'd just been stabbed. He told them he'd been stabbed, and they said: "don't think you have, mate".
The issue was that they allowed an innocent man to bleed out, while treating his killer as a victim, based on their race. This was not an isolated incident; this is in the context of the police systematically siding with people based on the colour of their skin, rather than whether they need immediate medical attention due to having been stabbed.
I appreciate that you're making a general point. But the specific examples need to support it. So this might go some way to dissolving how mysterious you find the phenomenon: sometimes, the thing you perceive as people blaming an entire group for individual actions isn't actually what's happening. It's a convenient cudgel for people to be able to dismiss the outrage over Henry Nowak's murder as "oh, that's just a bunch of racists who are blaming sikhs", but that doesn't make it true.
stoatherd
1mo ago
I hadn't come across Tracey before. He writes like someone who is probably interesting and worth taking seriously. But on this topic, his take is really bad.
Don’t worry ladies: I definitely have some critical observations I could share about your collective reasoning tendencies as well, but that can wait for another time, because it’s the guys who are really beclowning themselves on this one
It's men who are "beclowning themselves"?
It's the pro-Clancy apologists (who, yes, are generally women) who are making videos saying things like: "it was definitely the husband who murdered the kids, because he's a capricorn, and has the same birthday as Donald Trump, which proves he's a violent killer". Or draping themselves out of windows to show solidarity with Clancy. Or describing how they can easily imagine themselves, or their friends, as killing their kids.
But no, to Tracey, these aren't worthy of being labelled beclownment: the real embarrassing thing is to hold the position of "killing your kids is extremely evil" without sufficient nuance. And the people who lack empathy aren't the ones who describe how they can imagine themselves killing their kids; it's the people flinching away from this and calling it evil.
There is a real point underneath what Tracey's saying, but what he's actually saying is ridiculous.
(Note, also, that while he's castigating men for apparently lacking empathy, he's doing so with exactly zero empathy. He's being pointlessly nasty and aggressive. If he wants "men" as a class not to be blamed for being emotionally stunted etc, it might be a good idea for him to lead by example.)
you don’t get the moral highground because you’re willing to declare it’s bad for mothers to kill their babies and toddlers. Yeah, we know. Thanks. Literally no one who’s sane disagrees with that
The issue is the non-sane people who are doing apologism for that! "literally no one who's sane" is doing all the heavy lifting! And he must know this, because otherwise he'd just say "Literally no one disagrees with that". But because there observably are people who disagree with that, he knows he can't say that, so he has to qualify it; but somehow, in the qualifying of it, he doesn't realise (or deliberately ignores) that the qualification contains the counterargument -- which is that these people are behaving insanely.
[men have] somehow come to think that it’s a referendum on “women” in general, or how women are “never held responsible” for anything. What? If that’s what you’re really set on extrapolating here, it’s your own bizarre problem
Absurd gaslighting. The issue that I predominantly see his hategroup pointing to isn't the court, or expert opinion, or Clancy herself -- it's of the disturbing number of people (yes, essentially 100% women) whose entire thing is not holding Clancy responsible, because she is a woman.
Tracey has (correctly) made this a gendered thing. He cannot possibly fail to notice that Clancy's gender is a critical part of why so many are defending her. Within her supporters, the positions of "Clancy did it, but she's a victim!" and "the husband did it, and he's a monster!" coexist without tension, because it's about not holding specifically women responsible.
This isn't the soft bigotry of low expectations; this is Tracey applying zero expectations to women, and then excoriating men over behaviour that's orders of magnitude more reasonable, just, and empathetic, but not perfect. Shockingly, women are in fact capable of being very intelligent, decent, and reasonable. If stuff like "husband is capricorn, therefore murder" doesn't beclown women, but "killing kids is evil and there's no discussion to be had around psychosis" does beclown men, then that speaks to how wildly Tracey has miscalibrated his expections of each gender.
For the record, I largely agree with the psychosis defence. And I agree with @czr: "Whether she spends 50 years behind bars or 50 years in a mental institute doesn't make a difference to me, really." The issue that Tracey has papered over (deforesting the Amazon in the process) is the response of Clancy's supporters, not the psychosis defence itself. Tracey offhandedly going "yeah yeah, maybe some women have bad takes too, but that's so unimportant right now, let's focus on the MEN" is ridiculous.
stoatherd
1mo ago
consider the difference in both amount and style that The Spectator covered with Arday vs Epstein and his associates.
What was the Spectator's coverage of Epstein?
Your link only shows "the Spectator published 12 Arday stories over a 14-day period". I can't see any info about their Epstein coverage. It invites us to compare them, but doesn't actually present the latter thing to compare.
So: what are we supposed to be comparing? Epstein is a story that's been running for a decade or so. Is the complaint that Epstein should've been more prominent than Arday in that 2-week window? Or that, at the peak of the Epstein scandal (I guess around his suicide? idk) the Spectator published fewer articles than they did around Arday at his peak scandal? I expect that, on net, the Spectator published an order of magnitude more articles on Epstein than Arday. So is the issue the timing, the density, the frequency, the consistency, the tone, or what?
I have no opinion on the Spectator, and I'm certainly willing to be persuaded that they under-covered Epstein. But the tweet and your comment both take it for granted that we all know exactly what their coverage was, with no summary or evidence provided, and I'm reluctant to just accept that without even knowing exactly what I'm supposed to accept for the comparison.
And 12 stories over a 14-day period, by itself, seems completely reasonable to me, given how egregious the situation was. Arday wasn't excessively covered, regardless of whether Epstein was under- or over-covered.
stoatherd
2mo ago
Look dude I pointed out to you already where I said assume
"Now we can all assume" does not posit a hypothetical.
If you'd like, I can patronisingly link you to the definition of every word in that sentence, as that's the level of discourse you've decided to operate on.
stoatherd
2mo ago
That's reasonable. Thanks for taking the time to explain.
I want to record some general observations — they're not specifically about mkc, but obviously the context of this interaction is going to be read into them.
- There are corrosive patterns of behaviour that exist below the level that most people would want to report, or that would generally be modded. For example, repeatedly and egregiously lying about what other comments have said.
This is difficult to mod. Some people are going to call it "subjective" — I disagree, but there's a grey zone. Modding this too heavily is going to cross into tone policing, or outlawing people just misunderstanding each other. It's reasonable to err on the side of not modding this.
But it's still corrosive! Consider this exchange:
ALICE: Water is poisonous. BOB: Water isn't poisonous. Maybe you're confused about "dihydrogen monoxide" [insert effortpost] ALICE: if you're confused about the existence about poisons, I recommend this link. Obviously water itself isn't poisonous (idiot). If you're imagining that poisons can't be dissolved in water, I'm prepared to prove you wrong on that stupid position.
In this situation: does Bob report Alice? I don't think so. Maybe it's worth putting in more effort to point out the bullshit Alice has just pulled by lying.
But multiplied across many interactions... Alice can keep lying with zero effort, while the truth has to put in tons of effort to constantly correct the record.
If that's the recommended paradigm (I'm uncertain to what extent you endorse this), then backseat modding is kinda an implicit pillar of this ecosystem. People have to keep putting in effort to point out "no, you just lied — you said X earlier, and now you're pretending you said Y".
I'm aware that this gets under my skin. I'm correct to get really, really annoyed by this. I don't care if a person is a rightist, a leftist, or whatever — I care when they lie in a way that's easily disprovable by looking at the transcript, but that the average Motte reader wouldn't bother to go and read.
The correct behaviour is for me not to respond to this by flipping out, as I did in your link.
... but it's also a problem that someone keeps lying so much that they make someone flip out. You don't actually need to have a long list of shit posters who aggravate you.
I'm not proposing banning anyone for being annoying, or for having the wrong politics (that would be insane). I just want to register that there's this middle ground where disingenuous people can DDOS the Motte with truth-agnostic comments without any kind of restriction or punishment, so long as they stay below the level where they'll get actively modded.
I don't know the solution, I just don't think the current situation is... eh.
stoatherd
2mo ago
All I can do is give some hypotheticals, which is If we assume this recent statement is true from Vance because we assume he isn't lying to our faces
That isn't what you did.
I can't tell you which way is which cause I don't know
Then say that up front, instead of pretending.
Thus within this hypothetical
Your original comment had nothing to do with hypotheticals.
If people want to explore the alternative assumption where Vance is lying
People want to explore the alternative timeline where you say what you mean.
You think it's cute when you go "oh, you disagree with my unflattering framing X? Well, if you want to explore even-less-flattering-framing-Y, go ahead!"
The problem is that this hinges on everyone around you being stupid.
You are being criticised for obfuscating your position to try and head off specific criticism.
No one is saying "hey, you're being too charitable when you said Vance isn't a horrible liar!"
Please stop pretending that the latter is the case.
What they shouldn't do is blame their inability to properly read on me proposing a hypothetical
You are lying.
You did not propose a hypothetical.
Stop blaming people for not reading something you did not write.
stoatherd
2mo ago
I apologise for what comes across as backseat modding — I don't agree with the characterisation, but it's a reasonable one, and I might be wrong.
I don't agree that pointing this out contributes to the degradation of the Motte.
I didn't think that mkc's comment was bad enough to warrant reporting. I thought about it, but that seemed petty and wrong. If I'm wrong about that, I'd welcome the correction.
Here is the actual guideline at the top
Yes, I read this. I figured the additional context weighed in favour of pointing out the rules violation, not like some gotcha that I'd missed.
This applies to, for example, pretending you are arguing one thing when you're actually arguing something else, or implying something that is so unclear so as to invite confusion or misunderstanding
This is exactly what mkc is doing. My comments explain how.
If I'm backseat modding: fair. Ding me for that.
But I literally explain how mkc is deliberately avoiding holding a stance so that it's impossible to debate him.
I don't think that deserves a ban or anything, so I didn't report it. But if the rule is I can't even point that out, then that's a bad rule. And I don't think that is the rule.
I don't have an issue with mkc being annoying. I'm annoying!
I want him to commit to a position so we can discuss it.
You know what also contributes to the degradation of the Motte? You losing your temper with someone who seems to get under your skin
Yes, I correctly received a ban for this, and said so at the time.
Given that we agree on this, I'm not sure it's relevant to what we're talking about now.
If your position is that I'm doing the same thing again, which I don't think it is, then that would be relevant.
stoatherd
2mo ago
You are demanding the impossible, I can not know what is and isn't truthful in Vance's statements.
No one was asking for that.
No one even remotely hinted at asking for that.
I asked you to state what you believe.
You are the only person who finds that to be an insurmountable burden, or who deliberately conflates it with being asked for a perfect factual assessment of the world.
Stop lying.
I will not make bold claims like "Vance is definitely lying" when I can not know that
No one asked you to.
if we assume Vance is being truthful
That's not what you did.
You stated, while making the patented magicalkittycat ":3" face, that Vance was being truthful.
My entire point is requesting that you cut out this bullshit, and do the thing you just pretended you were doing all along. If you want to construct a hypothetical, construct the hypothetical.
But you don't. You want to dunk on people you think are less intelligent than you, and then pretend you weren't doing it.
I have no idea who you think this onanistic farce is fooling.
"Speak plainly", how about you bother to read instead?
Wish granted: I already read everything you said.
You always say this when you run out of arguments. It's lame. Try speaking plainly instead. Other people don't find it hard.
Again even if we flip the assumption around and observe the hypothetical where he is a liar, it doesn't tell us what parts are a lie and what is truth.
Another masterful exercise in completely ignoring the thing you just quoted.
What are you even doing?
stoatherd
2mo ago
go ahead and do that instead of whining
You are breaking the rules and wasting everyone's time.
Pretending that pointing that out is "whining" is pathetic.
Speak plainly.
You're forced to guess either way.
No, I wouldn't be forced to guess about what you believe if you actually stated what you believe. I wouldn't have to guess, because I would assume you were attempting to honestly represent your beliefs.
If you want to explore the "Vance is lying" hypothetical instead
I want you to be honest and state what you believe. Not just on this, but in general. I want you to make comments where you actually stake out a position that people can discuss, rather than just flinging shit at people you don't like, but in a way where you can't be pinned down on any particular claim, because you veil your claims behind ambiguity, sarcasm, and contempt for people you consider to be less intelligent than you.
These can both coexist!
No, they can't. Not inside the same argument!
Both possibilities here are suspicious.
Then say that. Ideally, pick one possibility, explain why you think it's true, and explain what it would imply.
Or, less ideally, construct a position of "one of these two things must be true", explain why you think that, and explain what each of them would imply.
What's juvenile is to simultaneously push for both being true. "Hey guys, Vance and Trump are pieces of shit and lie all the time. Also, Vance said this thing, and because he said it, it must be true; and, if true, it implies Trump is a paedo".
That's pathetic and contributes to the degradation of the Motte. Why is it so hard to just present a principled position? Why do you insist on marshalling a troop of mutually contradictory ideas-as-soldiers?
stoatherd
2mo ago
Now as we can all assume that just like Trump, Vance would never lie or act irresponsibly in his position at the top level of government so we should take him seriously when he said that Israeli and American intelligence clearly had connections to Epstein.
Actually, no. The rules say "speak plainly".
Stop doing this.
If you believe that Trump and Vance would lie and/or act irresponsibly, say so. Ideally in a substantive, interesting comment that adds to the discussion. Obviously, taking this path would be incompatible with what you want to vaguely but vigorously hint at: something like "Trump is paedophile". If that's an uncharitable distillation, then maybe try speaking plainly so people don't have to guess.
If, on the other hand, you don't think that Trump and Vance would lie and/or act irresponsibly --i.e. you want to disavow the entire smug point of your comment as, well, a lie -- then you can absolutely use Vance's comment as part of a chain of reasoning to connect Trump to Epstein, like you're salivating to do.
You want to have your cake and eat it. You want to simultaneously claim:
- Vance is a liar
- Vance wouldn't lie, therefore Trump paedo
... can you please pick a principled position? You might learn something, if you actually made a single falsifiable claim and tried to honestly discuss it, rather than throwing out a general shitstorm of "my outgroup is bad" without ever committing to a single coherent position.
stoatherd
2mo ago
That just assumes the materialist thesis. Humans aren't computers.
It doesn't assume that -- it rests solely on the idea that brains are physical objects. This is empirically verified by every single experiment run on a human brain. More generally, it's been borne out on every noun that interacts with the physical world.
"Humans aren't computers" is irrelevant. Brains are physical arrangements of atoms that are capable of intelligently solving problems. This assumes nothing.
(For completeness: you may be completely right about 2. You're sort-of-right about 3, in that the assumption was made and the assumption was mistaken. But I don't think you're right that the current approach avoids singularity. There are absolutely recursive feedback loops in improving the current implementation of AI, because improving AI is made out of tasks, and we can get AI to do tasks. But you're right that the original thesis had a much more directly integrated feedback loop.)
stoatherd
2mo ago
If you are unsure about what some public intellectual is saying,
I'm not.
Again, and you keep ignoring this, he explicitly says "there's a good chance UFOs are aliens".
I am not unsure about what he's saying. I've been pretty clear about this. He directly, literally, explicitly states his position. Why are you inventing this idea that I'm unsure what he's saying?
By not being willing to read other things on the topic you are dismissing disclaimers
Dude, I don't know how to explain it to you any more simply than I already did.
I am evaluating what he said in those two posts. I don't have to read a person's entire set of works to criticise specific posts!
This has nothing to do with me "not being willing to read"; you've completely invented that, as you've invented several other positions for me to hold.
Its not just a single "report" like you were describing it
Then blame Hanson, because that's his description: "a U.S. military report says that intelligently controlled UFOs with amazing abilities seem real to them".
I am literally relaying his words, and you keep assigning blame to me for direct quotes from Hanson! If he subsequently found other reports, that's fine; but I'm criticising his post based on the words inside it!
My priors on aliens are not as low as yours. There is nothing physically impossible about aliens existing.
Why do you think my priors are low? The only comment I've made on alien existence is "If aliens exist -- which I think is plausible". Where are you getting "stoatherd has a low prior on aliens?"
I don't know what it would take for you to change your mind on alien likelihood
Evidence.
The aliens don't have to be little green men, or any other hollywood stereotypes.
This is a nice line, but it seems to be from a different argument entirely.
Why do you consider the possibility so infinitesimally low? Is there some physical law you think it is violating?
The possibility of what, exactly? Aliens existing, or aliens specifically interacting with Earth, typically via UFOs?
Why are you inventing yet another position for me, that I consider the possibility (of whichever thing you're talking about) "infinitesimally low"?
I asked you a specific question in my last comment: when Hanson said "there's a good chance UFOs are aliens", did he mean there's a good chance UFOs are aliens?
You gave a pretty detailed rundown of how you think Hanson's views have evolved (which I appreciate). I think the implicit answer to my question was "yes", but please correct me if I'm wrong.
Given that, can you please acknowledge that you're now completely moving the goalposts? Because you claimed I was being uncharitable, and I was misinterpreting a hypothetical (with disclaimers!) from Hanson -- that he didn't actually believe the thing that I was saying he did.
Now you're saying he does believe that thing. And you're trying to prosecute the case that the thing is reasonable. That's fine, but can you please notice that you've entirely shifted the argument?
I keep reading more of his stuff and keep seeing more disclaimers ... Here he is in a another post
That's ok, because I'm not making a claim about Hanson's entire oeuvre. I'm talking about the two specific posts I got pointed to. If he has disclaimers elsewhere, that's not really relevant to my criticism of those posts.
Let me point to exactly which posts I'm talking about:
- My Politics, in which he says: "There’s a good chance some UFOs are aliens". It's presented without hedging or hypotheticals.
- UFOs -- What the Hell?, in which he says many things (which I covered in my original comment), such as: "note that our standard best scientific theories predict aliens".
I am criticising these posts. If you've found him saying other things elsewhere, then that's fine, but it doesn't change the contents of these posts. If I write a post saying "Bigfoot is real", and someone criticises it for insufficient evidence, it's unreasonable to point to a different post where I say "maybe Bigfoot is real, maybe he isn't".
While you keep reading his stuff and keep dismissing more of his disclaimers.
You are making this up.
I dismissed, in detail, exactly one disclaimer he made. Where are these multiple disclaimers I'm dismissing? I gave a pretty thorough explanation of why that disclaimer doesn't discharge my criticisms; it's not very charitable to round that off to me just generally dismissing his disclaimers, because I haven't done that.
[EDIT: to be fair, you presented a pair of adjacent disclaimers in a single block quote, which I handled as a single disclaimer. But it's still untrue to claim that I "keep dismissing more of his disclaimers"]
So he explicitly considers the "government hoax" explanation as most likely.
... and he explicitly considers "there's a good chance some UFOs are aliens".
Could you please address this quote from him directly? There are no disclaimers attached to it. Do you agree that Robin Hanson believes there is a good chance some UFOs are aliens? If not, why did he say he did?
His two claims are compatible, obviously. Maybe he thinks government hoax is 60% likely, and aliens are 30% likely. I think "a good chance" must mean at least 10%.
And I consider that to be ridiculous. I'm not criticising him for some strawman position of "I 100% believe UFOs are aliens". I'm criticising him for considering it a "good chance". That's an extraordinary position.
[Hanson is] weird guy likes weird ideas
Yes, that's fine! The Motte is full of weird guys who like weird ideas. I have nothing against that. What I'm doing is literally reading his words and assessing whether they're reasonable. Where disclaimers exists, or where he's going into a hypothetical, I'm very happy to come along with his ideas and explore what they would mean. But he isn't making disclaimers when he says there's a good chance some UFOs are aliens, or for any of the other places I'm criticising him. I'm not going to give him a blanket pass to assume everything he says is a hypothetical just because he likes weird stuff.
Robin Hanson is someone I'd feel comfortable pegging my views on aliens to. If he has recently updated his views from the ones expressed in his 2021-23 blogposts I'd be inclined to believe him without looking at any of the evidence.
There's a massive problem with doing this on the topic of aliens (not specific to Hanson).
If, say, a fitness expert tells you "make sure you eat lots of vegetables after a workout", it's reasonable to peg your beliefs to their claims. But if they say "make sure you smash yourself in the face with a brick every day", the dominant hypothesis should be "this person is mistaken".
So when an "expert on aliens" (?) tells you "there's a good chance UFOs are aliens", then your prior on UFOs being aliens should be so low that "this expert is mistaken" should be strongly in play! I'm not saying you should dismiss what they say out of hand -- it's reasonable to take their belief as evidence. But you shouldn't "be inclined to believe him without looking at any of the evidence".
I still think you are both reading him uncharitably, or reading something I haven't seen.
I'm literally just quoting him, and I've linked to the posts. If he doesn't think there's a good chance UFOs are aliens, it's his fault for saying he does; that's not a lack of charity from me.
stoatherd
2mo ago
It probably makes more sense if you view the phrase "intra-atheist squabble" as similar to "intra-bald-people squabble". Atheism isn't a faction with a unifying dogma or rules or structure, it's literally just "all the people who don't think there are any gods. It's a mistake to model atheists as a group that can, I don't know, have some kind of sedevacantist schism as to who's the real atheism pope with authority over atheism.
And I struggle to understand the second half of your bingo card: "intelligent life may be extremely improbable" isn't some crazy position, neither among atheists nor in general. From the way you're presenting it (and I may be misreading it), you seem to be saying something like: "huh, it's interesting and fun how, in arguing amongst themselves, these atheists have unintentionally generated a strong argument against atheism".
But that's not what that is!
Handwavy BigNum arguments are a typical part of the arsenal. Isn't the entire point of the unfalsifiable multiverse idea to construct a handwavy BigNum argument?
Depends which multiverse idea you're talking about, but I don't think so. When you say "arsenal", do you mean the arsenal of atheists? Because I don't think that's true either.
stoatherd
2mo ago
When you say post-camera miracle claims, do you mean:
- Miracles captured on camera, in a clear and credible way that indicates that the events of the miracle took place? (The same way that if I showed you a photo of me at a theme park, you'd take that as reasonable evidence that I went to a theme park)
- Literally just claims of miracles, that happened in the post-camera era? And/or fuzzy-bigfoot-240p type photos that don't actually disambiguate between "event happened" and "event did not happen".
Because I don't think (1) can possibly be true, but that's the one that matters. If you believe they exist, would you mind pointing me towards some? This would be the most interesting and important thing in the world.
Imagine falsely accusing someone and then not apologising for it! You're right, that would be embarrassing.
I'm sure you personally didn't do exactly the same thing to me lower down in the thread, where you mistook me for another commenter and threw a bunch of accusations at me:
Then, when I pointed out that I hadn't said any of the things you were accusing me of, what was your response?
Nice apology after accusing a person of throwing a tantrum based on your lack of reading comprehension.
The absolute chutzpah to accuse your political opponents of beclowning themselves with false accusations, and then not apologising for those false accusations, a couple of hours after doing the exact thing yourself. Truly incredible.
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