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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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I think you may have misunderstood me; I explicitly said ("Respect is fine") that it doesn't apply to how much respect you should have, as long as respect does not entail a greater likelihood of following his suggestions. "Respect" is one of those words that are overloaded for reasons that I suspect involve enemy action: it is rational to "respect" authority in the sense of being aware that it can field many dudes with guns and acting in a way that will make it less likely you will end up facing the barrel of one, but authority would have an easier time if you "respected" it in the sense of doing what it wants even when there wasn't enough budget to send a dude with a gun to your house, and ideally just replaced your value function with authority's own.

I have little doubt that Eliezer is more intelligent and insightful than most of us here, but I don't believe that his value function is aligned with mine and don't have the impression that he considers truthfulness towards others to be a terminal value, so if anything his superior intelligence only makes it more likely that letting him persuade me of anything will lead me to act against my own interest.