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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.

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.

Do you really think Alexandros' main motivation was followers? I don't get that impression from him, I think he genuinely cares a lot (maybe too much) about this stuff. That said I suppose it's often quite easy to convince yourself of something when it's profitable to do so, so maybe there's not a clear dividing line between "doing it for clout" and "doing it because you care" when the incentives align.

No, I won’t say main motivation. What you say about incentive alignment is more likely correct.

Edit: since this response I’ve checked Alexandros’ blog. He’s diversified into blaming FTX, like all right-thinking rationalists, and to live-streaming his opinions on Sam Harris. I think it’s obvious that he enjoys playing a certain kind of policy wonk, and has found a ready audience.

Oh, great. Now he's gone full tinfoil hat. He was always anti the TOGETHER trial, now he's trying to claim that of course it didn't find anything beneficial for ivermectin because SINISTER CONSPIRACY? I don't know if it's because Bankman-Fried is enemy of the month or what, but this is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Why would TOGETHER go out of their way to obscure the prior $3.25m grant by FTX? Could it be that it was used to fund writing the paper on ivermectin and that would be an undesirable complication? We can only speculate.

I can only speculate that the alien abductions and repeated mindwiping have affected Alexandros badly. We can only speculate, after all, that things happened because of other things that people now want to cover up!

Feels like he's dug himself too deep of a hole at this point. Not to say I'm positive he's wrong, but it seems that way. Going against your own pride, reputation, and financial and social incentives to recant years of blog posts on a single topic would be incredibly difficult for anyone.

Feels like he's dug himself too deep of a hole at this point.

It feels like no one bothers addressing any of his arguments, and that they were just waiting for Scott to write a response post so they can pretend it's the final word.

You know, just for that I'm going to read some more of his posts, because you seem to have accurately described my unconscious process. I'm pretty much in the "Ivermectin probably has little effect on Covid, and all the studies purportedly showing that are terrible." But I'll at least give him a chance to address that position.

Oh wow, wasn't expecting that. Kudos!

If you want to cut through the unrelated side swipes, and the minutiae, I'd say the core of the argument is that even if you remove the studies Gideon / Scott don't like you still have a strong pro-ivermectin signal, and that the worms hypothesis doesn't hold water. I don't know if I can point to a specific place this is well articulated, because 37 blog posts... but if you want to give him a fair shot, this is what I'd focus on.

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