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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35470 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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Looks like I missed Scott's latest on the Alexandros front.

On a factual level, it's high-quality and it seems he comes surprisingly close to Alexandros' perceived effect size.

On a conversational level, I hope that he considers this final. From my comment on the article:

gestalt vibes of untrustworthiness

Cue 37-part series from Alexandros explaining why Scott is Betraying Rationalism by including such a phrase.

I jest, but Alexandros has gotten so much mileage out of waging the culture war on this topic. He has worked very hard to frame his stance as simultaneously subversive and indignant. This shouldn't detract from the legitimate research he has collected. But it does predict his response to any high-profile conversation with Scott.

Anything Scott says can and will be used...not exactly against him, but for retweets and Substack follows. That does mean against him if and when Alexandros can frame it as punching up.

So I'll be satisfied if this is the end of the line. Scott has engaged, over and over again, with the factual scaffolding of Alexandros' arguments. The 5-10% chance is an adequate conclusion. Let Pascal and Omura wager accordingly.

Scott's posts contain so much content that fully responding to him requires 37 parts (or a less exaggerated version thereof). You don't get to post something containing large numbers of arguments that would take enormous amounts of space to respond to and then complain that your opponents are using up enormous amounts of space in replying to it.

This is why people don't like Gish gallops, and it seems like a no-win demand. Don't respond to some of what Scott said, letting him win because of volume regardless of his argument quality, or respond and get people complaining that you wrote 37 parts.

Funny, because I’ve made very similar arguments. One of the parties involved made a regular schedule of turning out new complaints, day after day, and it wasn’t Scott.

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