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An Attempt at Following Up on the User Viewpoint Focus Series
Thanks to @hydroacetylene for 1) the nomination and 2) reminding me to get on it. I followed his excellent template here.
Self-description in Motte Terms
I'm a classical liberal with a keen awareness that the American dream was made for me. In my personal life, I'm a well-paid Texan engineer with an appreciation for firearms. I love America and the American ideal even though I feel it's currently struggling with (what I see as) a particular failure mode of populism.
We enjoy unparalleled material prosperity thanks to strong societal values combined with good initial conditions. That carried us through two centuries of struggle to the top of the world, and now it gives us opportunities to shape the future of mankind. It also reminds us of an obligation not merely to perpetuate the system which got us here, but to spread the benefits to others who are less fortunate.
Yes, this almost certainly makes me one of the most progressive posters still on the site.
I absolutely despise the fascism of pure aesthetics which is so adaptive on social media. Contrarian countersignaling that you'll make the world a worse place because bad things are good, actually. "Tear it all down," "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out"... That's the lowest form of demagoguery.
My girlfriend, whom I love and trust more than anyone, once asked "why do you hang out with these people?" Why am I spending my time on this Earth arguing with people who hate my guts and sneer at the things I value? It's because I believe in the project. I believe that when classical liberalism gets to compete with the fascists and the communards, it comes out looking great. I believe that our model of debate club is a valiant attempt at implementing the liberal ethos of free exchange of ideas. I believe I can win friends and influence people via the political equivalent of betting them that nothing ever happens.
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
Recommended Reading
I'm not going to give a list of published books. Y'all probably know what goes in the classic Western philosophical canon. Plus, and I might not be supposed to mention this, but the vast majority of my model overlaps with what they teach to reasonably smart high schoolers. Perks of subscribing to what's basically our civic religion.
Allow me instead to share a few standout motte posts.
I still think about this post by, I believe, @AshLael. The idea that certain flavors of argument are advantaged against others helps to explain large swathes of the political landscape. It's also part of the reason I'm so invested in maintaining a Debate-heavy space like this one.
Here's a classic bit of Hlynka for those who missed it. While I deeply, deeply disagree with him on lots of things, he was grasping at something that most other users don't quite get.
But I've always had a special place for the strange and wonderful digressions of the Motte. /u/mcjunker's stories, @Dean's policy analysis, all sorts of stuff. One of the best examples has to be this monstrous essay on the aesthetics of jazz. Amazing stuff.
If you have any affinity whatsoever for text-heavy, mechanics-light video games, you should play Disco Elysium. Its Moralintern is a bizarre but excellent commentary on our rules-based international order. Also, it's generally hilarious and poignant.
While I am tempted to namedrop countless other works of fiction, it'd probably be more of a distraction. Ask me on a Friday thread.
Brief Manifesto
Assume your model is not going to work.
Doesn't matter if you're theorizing about politics or international relations or the state of the youth. The very fact that you've taken the time to present it in a forum post is a comorbidity for any number of critical flaws. Maybe it's wildly overcomplicated; maybe it overlooks some basic fact of human psychology. As soon as you introduce your theory, the fine commentariat of the Motte will show up and explain how it's actually stupid.
This is a good thing, because picking holes in ideas is how you get better ideas. (Okay, yes, it's also quality entertainment.) But it might not be fun, and there will be some psychological pressure to insist that nothing is wrong. No. The critics are right, and your grand psychoanalysis is probably bunk. So why not try to get ahead of the curve and figure out what went wrong? What's the first objection someone is going to make when you hit "post"?
This is the difference between arguing to understand vs. arguing to win.
If you want to have a constructive discussion, the single most useful thing you can do is to think about how you might be wrong. It's not easy, I sure don't live up to it as much as I ought to, but I promise. It's worth it.
Ping Me On...
Voting systems. Electoral reform along the lines of single transferable vote is literally my single issue, because I think it's actually a credible path to a more functional government. Seriously, if you know about a way I can act against FPTP, let me know.
Science fiction. Fantasy. Weird hybrids that defy or define genres. I'd like to say I'm pretty well-read in this sense. I certainly enjoy the subject.
Historical trivia of all sorts. Perhaps it's stereotypical for a board like this, but yes, that includes military history and hardware. And while my own collection is still amateurish, I'm always happy to talk about firearms as a hobby, too.
Posts I'm Proud Of
I don't generate a lot of AAQCs, and when I do, I tend to look back with a little embarassment. Something of a tendency towards melodrama. Still, I'm convinced that I was on to something here.
I also feel strongly about my comments on the state of fiction. Media is the first thing to get the 'ol "back in my day" treatment, and especially with modern storage methods, it's so easy to put on rose-tinted glasses. But all sorts of bizarre fiction is out there. Perks of a bigger, faster, more interconnected world. I encourage everyone who thinks modern media sucks and/or is captured by their ideological enemies to go out and find stuff that's just too weird to capture.
This was easier to write and harder to do than I expected.
I'll nominate @Rov_Scam for the next entry.
I like the ideal of this, but in practice, sometimes the myth is more important than the truth. Humans are story-tellers by nature. It's in our blood. Telling stories is the great cultural commonality that links every society throughout human history. The Aztecs were telling stories about Cihuatecayotl God of the West Wind at the same time that Spaniards were telling stories about Clavijo at the same time the English were telling stories about King Arthur at the same time the Byzantines were telling stories about being Rhōmaîoi at the same time the Russians were telling stories about Koschei the Deathless at the same time the Chinese were telling stories about the Yellow Emperor. These stories, some of which were pure myth some of which were myth based on fact, provided a common basis of understanding for their culture. England is not England without the stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Spain is not Spain without the myth of the Battle of Clavijo or Santiago Matamoros (Saint James Moorslayer). The Byzantine Empire only existed, only had legitimacy, because of their claim of being the Heirs of Rome, being Rhōmaîoi, Roman citizens.
When you shine the light of truth on King Arthur, you find a squalid little Welshman who may or may not have been a Roman Centurion, who probably fought a few battles and died in a meaningless cattle raid more likely than not. When you shine the light of truth on the Battle of Clavijo, you find nothing to support it. When you shine the light of truth on the Byzantine claims, you find something there, but come on, they're all Greeks, speaking Greek, worshiping the Christian god, with an Emperor-in-name as opposed to the Roman Emperor-in-all-but-name. Truth eviscerates these foundational, common myths. It destroys them utterly. But should it? Is England a better place where nobody cares about the Legend of King Arthur anymore? Where there is no common understanding that they are English, and that they have a common mythos that binds them together more firmly than something as pedestrian as the right to vote for some wanker in Parliament? Is Spain a better place when there is no longer that same pride in the Reconquest, that same understanding that their ancestors were chosen by God and Saint James to bring the light of Christendom to the Iberian Peninsula, and drive out the infidel who conquered the home of their fathers?
Myth and legend serve a purpose. Seeking truth is a noble goal, but it must be tempered with the understanding that sometimes there are things more important than the truth.
I do not understand why rationalist love this sentence as it obviously goes against their main moral philosophy of utilitarianism. Most people - even rationalists - are not against what they consider white lies either individually (e.g. lying to Kant's axe murderer asking where your wife is) or society wide myths (e.g. everybody is equal before law, every vote counts etc). The actual sentence should therefore be something like
Which is basically in line with other moral philosophies as well - most of them like the truth unless it goes against other key values in that system.
If you are the Czar and you're the only one who needs to be a utilitarian, sure. If you need there to be lots of utilitarians, then assuming some commonality of interests lies are terrible because they cause people to calculate utility incorrectly. All moral systems are somewhat sensitive to false information, of course, but utilitarianism is particularly and notoriously so.
Or lies can cause people to calculate utility correctly, especially if they have some sort of bias. Is it not the whole point of rationalist thinking - Overcomening Bias? If a white lie can do that, then it will increase utility and general good.
Truth and utility are different concepts that are independent of each other - rationalist could say that they if they are not exactly orthogonal, they are at least at some steep angle to each other. I am not sure why rationalists cannot understand this argument - are they not supposed to be impersonal calculators? If Yudkowsky calculated that spewing lie after lie for the rest of his life will enable humanity to align the AI, he would 100% do it to usher his utopia. Would he not?
I mean, this is basically just saying "sometimes lying results in people believing the truth". And, okay, this is not actually impossible, but it's not very likely, especially in the long run. COVID is the obvious recent example of people trying this shit and it blowing up in their faces.
More generally, you say "I am not sure why rationalists cannot understand this argument". Notice that if you're not sure why somebody doesn't accept something, one of the possible answers is in fact "they understand it just fine, but there's a counterargument that they understand and you don't".
Spoiler alert: there's literally a Yudkowsky article from 2008 about this. And another. Probably others I haven't read or can't recall offhand!
No. It says that lies can increase utils. Truth and utility are independent concepts, why do you have it confused?
Then demonstrate it. The very first sentence of your reply shows that I was right.
I don't.
You said "calculate utility correctly". To calculate utility correctly requires knowing the truth. Different worldstates result in different expected utilities for the same course of action, so a utilitarian with a bad understanding of reality will act suboptimally according to his own utility metric - often wildly so. The obvious example is that genocide looks utile if you think the relevant demographic are all evil.
Hence, "lies can cause people to calculate utility correctly" = "sometimes lying results in people believing the truth".
This is distinct from "lies can be utile", which is broader and covers things like people having different utility metrics and/or people not actually being utilitarians and/or direct, non-choice-based belief effects (e.g. stress). That condition of "if you need there to be lots of utilitarians" is actually relevant to my point, y'know.
So we are back to square one. It seems to me that you are truthitarian and not a utilitarian, which is fair game. Let's investigate it on my previous example of Kant's axe murderer asking for you wife. Since she can be destroyed by [you telling] the truth about her whereabouts, then she should be destroyed, right? Because telling a lie can hamper yours and murderer's ability to correctly calculate the utility in the future with immense impacts. Or you should tell a lie, because death of you wife would be more negative utility compared to whatever impact on correct calculation of utility is there from telling a lie. What is your answer to the axe murderer? Is the truth the ultimate value that should destroy all and everything in its path? Or is it subordinate to other values such as your best estimation of utility in a given moment?
That is why amended Sagan's mantra:
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