This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Right, a majority of people think of Arnold or HAL, but Doomers are not a majority of people and are, IMHO, very different from regular people. Regular people don't really think about this stuff and just connect the superficial similarities between Terminator and AI Doom in the future, whereas AI Doomers seem to have arrived at their position by looking at actual current science, not science fiction, and extrapolating into the future in a way they find plausible. I think inspiration by fiction, whether that be The Terminator or anime, is a tiny factor when it comes to AI Doomers.
Also, I'm assuming AIM doesn't stand for AOL Instant Messenger, but I don't know what it refers to.
what do you think is more probable, that the Doomers saw Terminator in theaters when they were children or that they watched Anime related to AI doom?.
that is a major disagreement we have there. To me Doomers and "rationalists" in general are just regular people very good at rationalizing their biases.
Sorry, it was supposed to be AM not AIM. From I have no mouth and I must scream.
I mean, neither is particularly probable, since the popular/good Terminator films are rated R, and I don't really know of anime related to AI doom in a similar way. I don't think Doomers tended to get their inspiration from fiction they watched as children, though, since the narrative of the Doomers tend to be very different from the AI doom narratives seen in fiction.
I don't see where the disagreement is. I believe that Doomers and rationalists in general (two different though overlapping sets of people) are just regular people very good at rationalizing their biases too. That doesn't mean that they're not very different from regular people, because "being very good at rationalizing one's biases" isn't the one and only characteristic that defines humans. Regular people don't tend to look into technology and try to project it decades into the future to predict where things will go, which is how Doomers seem to have come to their conclusions. Regular people tend not to have much interest in AI or robots or technology at all, where as Doomers almost by definition do.
Personally, I think Doomers, again, largely got inspiration from looking at technology and projecting it to the future in a way that is... rather hubristic or conceited. I'd call them a modern iteration of an apocalypse cult, much like idpol/SJW/CRT/wokeness/etc. is a modern iteration of a religion. It fulfills all the roles of such things while transforming just enough things to be convincing to modern educated people who consider themselves scientific and rational, since the old versions of these had too many characteristics that were too obviously incompatible with science; so they just made them less obvious. But I don't think either were inspired by The Terminator or other such works of scifi.
we are in agreement on that point then.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link