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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

I've seen this type of writing before. It's a kind of twisted pseudo-criticism you write against a group you dislike. You can compose stuff like this against any group. It sounds believable from the outside, especially if you start sceptical to begin with. But take a closer look - it's actually full of ad-hominems, cherry-picking facts and presenting them in worst light possible. I've been a part of several groups that were targeted by such prose - first the religious group I grew up in, that is a minority in my country; then the school I went to. My university year used (a very lite version of) such criticism against another, so I've seen it from the other side as well. Hell, people write shit like this about HN!

It's hard to defend against such criticism. You'll get boggled down in refuting specific accusations, but this is something you can never win. The only winning move is to ignore it completely. Personally, I shun and shame people who write such stuff, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with their victims. Dishonesty is a poison that destroys societies.

TL;DR: this text is harmful, malicious bullshit. If it at least offended people with style, there would be something to save it.

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I know you're a huge advocate for Lesswrong, but not "everybody" or "anyone" has quotes ripe for picking like Yudkowsky. Stephen Bond is not just throwing some opinion out there, he's backing it up with first-hand sources:

Yudkowsky on his simplified views of why race gets brought up:

> "Race adds extra controversy to everything; in that sense, it's obvious what difference skin colour makes politically".

> "Group injustice has no existence apart from injustice to individuals. It's individuals who have brains to experience suffering. It's individuals who deserve, and often don't get, a fair chance at life. [...] Skin colour has nothing to do with it, nothing at all."

Yudkowsky on our current societal structure, adulating the people who give him funding:

> One of the major surprises I received when I moved out of childhood into the real world, was the degree to which the world is stratified by genuine competence.

Yudkowsky writing short stories about a society where rape is legal, leaving himself ample room for plausible deniability, but putting it up "for debate":

>> "No, us. The ones who remembered the ancient world. Back then we still had our hands on a large share of the capital and tremendous influence in the grant committees. When our children legalized rape, we thought that the Future had gone wrong."

>> Akon's mouth hung open. "You were that prude?"

(https://web.archive.org/web/20131206200429/http://lesswrong....)

I think some well-meaning LessWrongers get caught in the crossfire, but I think the essay makes a very well grounded case for the blindspots "rationalists" have towards politics that suit the identity of people like Yudkowski.

I'm not that huge advocate of LW. I used to frequent the site, I read the Sequences and generally liked what I saw.

RE parts you quoted. Of course they look bad, because they've been ripped out from context.

Race:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/kk/why_are_individual_iq_differences...

This is an article asking, to quote: "But why is it that the rest of the world seems to think that individual genetic differences are okay, whereas racial genetic differences in intelligence are not?". Yudkowsky seems to argue that making big controversies around whether there are, or are not, differences between "races" is missing the point; it's just one of many variables and we should focus on fixing intelligence disparities for everyone.

Society:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/ub/competent_elites/

This blogpost is marked as controversial from the get-go. It covers a quite interesting theory IMO - that the very common meme, which says that elites are stupid and evil, is in fact wrong. Eliezer argues towards a more socially uncomfortable opinion - that elites are, in fact, smarter and better at organizing things. Given that this is a belief most people are heavily biased against, it actually may be the "thing you can't say", per PG's essay at http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html.

Story:

Geez. This is a sci-fi story. Moreover, it's explicitly designed to fuck with reader's moral intuitions. That's its entire point. Personally, I find it fun and insightful, but it is heavy. You can read the whole work here:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/

And to be clear. I'm not idolizing Eliezer. He's just a man who thought a lot about some stuff, and wanted to share it. He sometimes gets it wrong (and, as opposed to many, has at least the courage to admit he was wrong). But I absolutely hate this kind of bullshit pseudocriticism when it's directed against anyone - be it my friend or enemy, be it someone I admire or despise of. Eliezer is not beyond criticism, but we can do better than that.

I guess I just disagree with you that they're taken out of context?

1. Bond posits Yudkowski thinks that racism is mostly due to genetic difference, and not about the deliberate, mostly political disenfranchisement of minorities.

You say this is a wrong because his appraisal of the situation as being caused by genetic disparities is benevolent, and that he wants to work to "fix" it.

These aren't in contradiction- to say that it's unfortunate that society is racialized, but that it's due to traits rather than politics, is better than being wantonly racist, but still a well-known form of fallacious racism. Some would say this latter one is actually worse in terms of perpetuating the situation.

2. Of course it's "controversial from the get go". He looks at the disproportionate representation of certain people in ie: tech, and concludes that it's because they're "more competent". Nothing here seems to be a counter, you're just basically saying "it's politically incorrect so it's probably right".

3. Clearly it's just a story. This point eludes exactly nobody. The whole point is that these kind of people find these questions ("is rape really bad?") really intriguing rather than obvious. It makes you wonder about the power of Bayesian reasoning- the exact point of the essay.

I think you're too uncharitable to critical writers like Bond (it took me a while to acquire a taste for this vicious kind of writing), underestimating their and their audiences' understanding. As a result, you think this context adds way more than it does.

The racism and feminism points Bond makes sound to me like typical social justice warrior bullshit - no matter what you do, you're a misogynist racist. Disagreeing with the modern trend of mindless outrage paints you as an enemy. So does ignoring the topic. So let me skip it, because I do disagree with Bond very seriously about that part of the text, and I don't want to start another SJW subthread here.

> Nothing here seems to be a counter, you're just basically saying "it's politically incorrect so it's probably right".

No; I'm saying that just because he's politically incorrect, doesn't mean he's wrong. And it most definitely does not mean Bond gets to assume all the bad things he did about the author. Eliezer is just toying with an idea based on some observations. Personally, I find his idea intriguing and worth considering, given that time and again I've learned that when the general population seems to believe something counterintuitive and self-serving, like "those rich people are stupid and evil", they're usually wrong.

> The whole point is that these kind of people find these questions ("is rape really bad?") really intriguing rather than obvious.

I think we disagree on the interpretation. Many stories raise weird questions about morality; that's the reason we have literature. Please find me a place on LW where people, and Eliezer in particular, were seriously advocating for rape. Also it's worth noting that the rape angle was just a passing remark in the story, a way to shake the audience a little bit - and otherwise in no way relevant to the plot.

> I think you're too uncharitable to critical writers like Bond (it took me a while to acquire a taste for this vicious kind of writing), underestimating their and their audiences' understanding. As a result, you think this context adds way more than it does.

Maybe I am, but it's because I've been a member of groups that were on the receiving end of such writings, and spent a lot of time debunking them point-by-point to concerned friends and colleagues who stumbled upon them. It's painful, and you realize just how helpless you are against people who argue dishonestly.

"1. Bond posits Yudkowski thinks that racism is mostly due to genetic difference, and not about the deliberate, mostly political disenfranchisement of minorities."

You don't need to take the author's word for it. Look at the article itself.

The article is not about the question of whether race affects intelligence. It's saying that that question is much less important than the fact that individuals have different IQ levels regardless of race. At least in the context of this article, which is asking whether "God is fair".

To make it crystal clear - Yudkowsky is saying:

1. Forget race. There are clear, obvious, and gigantic genetic differences in individuals which cause differences in intelligence.

2. This is "unjust".

3. We should be upset about this, and try to fix it.

That's all he's saying in that article - it is not at all racist.

If you think otherwise, please - quote the relevant part of the article and explain yourself.

I'm not gonna do a good job at explaining this, because it's far from my subject area, but the problem is that your demand for "the relevant part" asks for blunt evidence of a subtle phenomenon.

When we talk about politics, context matters. Someone like Yudkowsky doesn't believe stupidly racist things, like a KKK member or turn-of-century politician, or even modern anti-immigration people. Bond's targeting something much more subtle.

The point is that here you have a man who naively keeps trying to push the dialogue "beyond race" ("forget race"), in a forum where if you scroll down to the comment section, you'll see Jeff H. with 5 upvotes defending Watson's racist remarks, with Epiphany at 0 upvotes talking about the cultural reasons why IQ tests fail.

It's about the framework, and what it allows, and about what allows the people championing it to be naive or indifferent about what it allows. Someone discussing coldly and clinically the pros and cons of rape isn't a rapist, but there's something else about someone who can have discussion coldly and clinically. Some people take pride in their level-headedness about tough topics, others would take it as a signal of their lack of empathy with the victims, and the signal this sends to people who do feel passionately about it.

And so Yudkowsky will discuss race in this goofy aloof kind of way- "maybe black people are intellectually inferior, let's talk about it, does it even matter in the end?", and some people will believe that this is the right kind of coolness to produce neat solutions, and others will believe it robs the steam off of the emotional connection that would engage people in political action for change.

You have to suss this kind of thing out, and if you plain don't want to believe me that there's something enabling towards racism and sexism and other various supremacist ideologies in the LessWrong ecosystem, you don't really have to.

There is definitely something enabling about it. A lot of modern politics wants you to NOT believe black people are stupid criminals.

Yudkowsky would almost certainly endorse "if black people are stupid criminals I want to believe black people are stupid criminals, if black people are not stupid criminals I want to believe they are not stupid criminals". (This is the litany of tarski, which he endorses, applied to a specific case.) One could certainly view this as "enabling" supremacist views under the circumstances that reality supports them.

Is a fair summary of your critique that Yudkowsky is rationally and unemotionally reasoning about problems which are normally addressed via appeals to emotion, and this subverts emotional appeals to the masses to take certain actions?

I've read your post several times, and this is the most charitable takeaway I can come up with. But this sounds insane so I feel like I must be misunderstanding something.

Someone who feels injustice, but hasn't had the time or resources to codify it into a calm rational treatise is said to be speaking from emotion. Someone who merely experiences base greed, but is able to justify it to themselves as righteous and deliberate and socially beneficial with a bunch of babble, is considered rational.

And so, the idea that the rigid set of discursive boundaries that LessWrongians impose upon themselves may favor a political outcome (the status quo) seems ridiculous to you, because you use "rational" as a compliment and "emotional" as an insult.

Can you find me an influential LessWrongian who describes making emotional decisions based on greed as "rational"?

Based on my reading, a profit seeker obeying his gut and losing money is irrational. In contrast, a social justice type observing that assortative mating causes inequality and therefore attempting to reduce educated women's marriage choices is rational. But maybe you've read more than me, and can figure out what I missed?

And so, the idea that the rigid set of discursive boundaries that LessWrongians impose upon themselves may favor a political outcome (the status quo)...

This is a completely new critique of the Less Wrong crowd. The normal critique, and the specific one you cited, claim that Less Wrong is too far from the status quo and concerns itself with things like the singularity.

Adding to my confusion is that in the very post you criticize, Yudkowsky explicitly advocates fixing intelligence deficits with "sufficiently advanced technology, biotech or nanotech". How is fixing every person with an IQ < 150 using nanotechnology remotely preserving the status quo?

(Note also that Yudkowsky is explicitly advocating that if genius isn't uniformly distributed, as social justice types claim to believe, we should explicitly change the world to make it so.)

I can't seem to post a reply, so I'll wrap it up here.

I'm criticizing an ecosystem. Yudkowsky-types noodle with weird hypotheticals, others with elitist views get validation. Fantasizing of fixing our current issues with futuristic tech, using it as a yard-stick to criticize ie: a collective black identity from forming a political block, is not explicitly pro-status quo but ends up being so in practice.

So the only criticism here is that views of various people on LW forum do not conform to the mainstream social justice outrage narrative, where everything needs to be politicized and "status quo" must be fought?

That's sort of the entire point of "Politics is the Mind-Killer" statement, a point which Bond also missed - LW community wants to focus on effective ways to deal with actual problems, as opposed to doing politics. They're not criticizing "a collective black identity", speaking against them "forming a political block". They're not talking about it. It's besides the point of that article and mostly besides the point of the entire community, which tends to focus on how to make things better for everyone.

Frankly, I find it funny to see accusations of racism aimed at people who are known to seriously, and not just as a figure of speech, consider humanity as one great family who are in it together. But then again, everyone of us who is not outraged is secretly a racist and supports the enemy.

Also consider the core statement of the Mind-Killer article:

"Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back—providing aid and comfort to the enemy. People who would be level-headed about evenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional life as scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies when there's a Blue or Green position on an issue."

It's perfectly OK to avoid that kind of political discussions. I'd say it's weird to actually partake in them.

I'd love to reply to you all (ie: siblings) but this discussion is just sprawling (not a fan of "tree-and-leaf" fanning arguments, I much prefer linear forums), and I just can't put in the time.

FWIW, you strike me as a good person, as do many LWers. I wish I could communicate to you the nuance of my issues with statements like "humanity as one great family", but I'm a newbie at the study of ideology myself, so I wouldn't do a good job.

À la prochaine!

I'm not very familiar with the subject matter, but do you realize that this concluding argument is very weak?

Firstly, I don't think I've seen mentioned an instance where Yudkowsky seems to be trying to prevent a collective black identity from forming a political block.

Secondly, you've suggested that the mechanism by which Yudkowsky's material end up as bullets for people who desire to perpetuate prejudice is where the prejudiced party misrepresents Yudkowsky (thereafter, Y). Therefore, your reasoning goes, Y and the LW commenters are guilty for engaging in subject matter that are ripe for appropriation.

Unless I'm mistaken, your accusation is one that is pretty unjust in itself. You are accusing Y with a moral crime for Y&LW's association with (racially) prejudiced groups that have misrepresented Y as prejudiced. This is despite that Y has neither affirmed this association nor mentioned anything prejudiced, his crime being entertaining "weird hypotheticals". Rather, if such a thing has occurred, isn't Y a victim of the prejudiced groups himself?

I think your premises are mistaken on several fronts, I'm annoyed by your (mis)characterizations of LW and Eliezer, and I disagree strongly with your conclusion...

but your comment helped me actually understand this position for the first time, so thank you for articulating it.

>The whole point is that these kind of people find these questions ("is rape really bad?") really intriguing rather than obvious.

That isn't the question the story is asking. Second of all, Eliezer says:

>This is a work of fiction. In real life, continuing to attempt to have sex with someone after they say 'no' and before they say 'yes', whether or not they offer forceful resistance and whether or not any visible injury occurs, is (in the USA) defined as rape and considered a federal felony. I agree with and support that this is the correct place for society to draw the line. Some people have worked out a safeword system in which they explicitly and verbally agree, with each other or on a signed form, that 'no' doesn't mean stop but e.g. 'red' or 'safeword' does mean stop. I agree with and support this as carving out a safe exception whose existence does not endanger innocent bystanders. If either of these statements come to you as a surprise then you should look stuff up. Thank you and remember, your safeword should be at least 10 characters and contain a mixture of letters and numbers. We now return you to your regularly scheduled reading. Yours, the author.

The point that the protagonists legalized rape, is to demonstrate that the protagonists morals are just as far from us, as the baby eaters or super happies. That the story isn't about two alien societies, but three.

Second of all, what "these kind of people" find intriguing is that our morals are for the most part due to our circumstances. That in the future, people may very well accept what we find today to be abhorrent, and find abhorrent what we accept.

That is the point of "is rape bad?". Because it is simply an example of something that is obviously bad. Just like some time ago there were other things that were considered obviously bad, that today we accept (same sex relationships for example). And if we are aware that the future will look back and mock us for our obviously wrong morals, then maybe we will be faster to get on the ball with the next gay rights or what ever.

Are there moral beliefs you hold today, that you think the future might condemn you for? Or do you think in this time and place you've acquired a perfect set of morals?

These sorts of quotes can reveal a lot about the source that quoted them, if you track them back to their original source and check for reasonableness there. I think you'll find that each of these quotes had its meaning or connotation dramatically altered by the removal of context.

Those parentheses obscure a significant point. The full paragraph is

>So, in defiance of this psychological difference, and in defiance of politics, let me point out that a group injustice has no existence apart from injustice to individuals. It's individuals who have brains to experience suffering. It's individuals who deserve, and often don't get, a fair chance at life. If God has not given intelligence in equal measure to all his children, God stands convicted of a crime against humanity, period. Skin colour has nothing to do with it, nothing at all.

He's claiming that skin color has nothing to do with the (according to him) injustice of different people having different intelligences. He's not claiming that skin color has nothing to do with why people don't get a fair chance at life. "Skin colour has nothing to do with it" is making a moral claim, not an empirical one.

If your ideas can stand on their own merit, you can defend them against criticism without resorting down to saying things like "oh it's a pseudo criticism and cherry picking facts". You're the one calling it bullshit. You even admit you wouldn't want to refute specific accusations.

And then go on to call it "malicious bullshit".

So, basically what you're saying is that we shouldn't listen to this criticism (which provides very valid points btw) but listen to you, when all you've done is attack the critique in a classic ad-hominem fallacy.

See the problem here?

Let's try: as far as I know, this bit: Under this rallying cry, Lesswrong insiders attempt to purge discussions of any political opinions they disagree with.

Having hanged around LessWrong for quite some time, I'm pretty sure this point is false. How am I to show it however? Dump the whole site to show the absence of such purges? And how the inevitable counter-example? Quite a lot has been said there, we're bound to find unacceptable behaviour somewhere. All I can provide is a testimony. In other word, anecdotal evidence, which we all know to be weak.

There's another way to say "pseudo criticism and cherry picking facts". It's the fully general counter-argument. If the criticism can indeed apply to all groups, then it effectively applies to none, because it doesn't provide a way to discriminate different groups.

Alright, lets see

> Having hanged around LessWrong for quite some time, I'm pretty sure this point is false. How am I to show it however? Dump the whole site to show the absence of such purges?

To refute the above statement, only one statement to the contrary would be a good start - it would provide me with enough evidence to consider your side of the story and think that perhaps the critique isn't completely fair.

> Quite a lot has been said there, we're bound to find unacceptable behaviour somewhere.

This can be said for any popular community. Does that mean we should not critique them? Or that some how invalidate any criticism against them? No.

The thing you're missing here is not the number of counter-examples, but a general cultural trend. HN, for example, is a tech oriented community, but political discussion isn't anathema here. I can show this by reading a few posts and noticing how people are comfortable discussing differentiating political opinions here. It's not perfect argument, but it's a good start, and goes a long way towards making me appreciate the environment.

Here, there is an important role played by so called "leaders" in community and how tolerant they are as well, by the way. And I know for a fact that Elizer isn't one of them. Then again, what else do you expect from a guy who tries to edit his own Wikipedia page.

> If the criticism can indeed apply to all groups, then it effectively applies to none, because it doesn't provide a way to discriminate different groups.

I'd happily accept this if you specifically mention which criticism in the parent link can be applied to all. The critique is very, very specific. It starts by defining what Bayes Theorem is, what LW and their ilk think about it, more of their pseudo-intellectual talk, the cult of personality, the AI apocalypse doomsday scenarios, etc etc.

You want me to read it? Okay.

I don't like the introduction, mostly because I believe what he ridicules to a degree (AI is an existential risk, I have enjoyed HPMOR more than Rowling's work, and I'm not quite sure that making lots of money and give it away is worse than working directly for whatever cause we want to support).

Bayesian grace

Bayes T-shirt means certain asshole. Well at least it made me smile.

I agree that Bayes' theorem is not that notable. The product rule, more fundamental, is more representative of the laws of probability (the actual basis for bayesianism).

Of course, the "formula for the perfect brain" is computationally intractable…

The association between Bayesianism and Neo-Liberalism looks like an ad-hominem attack —doesn't apply to me, at least.

I can't comment on this "Bayesian revolution". But I'm already suspicious of the whole essay at this point, and cannot trust this paragraph.

Amazing Bayes

What the author fails to acknowledge here is that to the extent it can apply, Probability theory is that amazing. There are, like proofs of it working very broadly, and it relies on very few axioms. (Jayne's work in Probability Theory: the Logic of Science leaves little doubt about that.)

Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Often very weak evidence, but evidence nonetheless. Whoever believe otherwise doesn't understand probability theory. (Maybe the author conflated "evidence" and "proof", or "evidence" and "strong evidence"?)

The correct application of probability theory is computationally intractable in many cases. I can see how it would be unworkable for historians, who have to juggle with many many kinds of evidence. Not having read Richard Carrier however, I'm not sure this objection is not yet another strawman.

Accusing Bayesianism to be responsible for confirmation bias is ridiculous however. Confirmation bias does not follow probability theory. It often follows an incorrect application of it however.

Less Wrong

Okay, I'm out. The insults are too blunt, came too soon, without any justification so far. SIAI (now MIRI) as a doomsday cult is a strawman. As for LessWrong, Eliezer specifically warned about the dangers of using rationalist's tools for rhetoric purposes —how your own biases can increase when you know about biases.

I'm not taking the effort required to search for and debunk any justification that might come later. He just used up my patience.

Yes, I see the problem you mention. All I offer is, as a person who spent some time hanging around that group but not exactly an insider, my honest assessment: this criticism is very unfair, very hurtful, and mostly bullshit. You don't have to believe me - but you now have a second data point for your consideration.

I did engage with some points in comments below though, to show examples of this cherry-picking facts, ripping them out of context and twisting them into supporting something completely untrue.

But my general point is that this kind of criticism is impossible to defend against. To prove that it's mostly bullshit would take me literally writing a book - in which I would surely make mistakes, that then could be used to discredit it entirely in a single article. This is the asymmetry of dishonest arguing - you can get your results with 1/100 the effort if you're willing to deceive your reader.

When people read a powerful criticism "debunking" things about a group they vaguely know, the default for most is to agree with the criticism. For some reason it's natural to humans. All I want now is to make people stop for at least a moment, consider that the article may be unfair, and to not make judgments before double-checking the claims.

Maybe I could've written it in a more dispassionate way. It's hard for me - not because I like LW, but because I've been in other groups targeted by this kind of criticism, spent way too much time trying to defend the group from it, and I know the crushing feeling that no matter what the truth is, it'll be twisted and bent until it can be used as a weapon against you.

> this criticism is very unfair, very hurtful, and mostly bullshit. You don't have to believe me - but you now have a second data point for your consideration.

No I do not. All you've provided me is a point of view without anything resembling rational reasoning. I believe that trains can fly. You don't have to believe me, but now you have another data point for your consideration.

> this kind of criticism is impossible to defend against.

See my initial statement. All you have to do is point flaws in the above link.

> To prove that it's mostly bullshit would take me literally writing a book - in which I would surely make mistakes,

If you're not confident in your ability to assess and refute an argument, then why bother making it?

> that then could be used to discredit it entirely in a single article.

Nobody is saying the article above is perfectly written, or that the critique is 100% on point, but that does not mean the broad point he makes has no merit. Same would be true for the hypothetical book you write.

> When people read a powerful criticism "debunking" things about a group they vaguely know, the default for most is to agree with the criticism. For some reason it's natural to humans.

Do you have any basis on which you're making that claim? No, because if you did, you'd provide that.

> All I want now is to make people stop for at least a moment, consider that the article may be unfair, and to not make judgments before double-checking the claims.

But WHY? WHY? You've, objectively, given me ZERO reason besides "it's malicious and people are biased when reading debunking articles". You've clearly refused to engage in the content. You haven't even quoted a single line and proved that it's false. Whereas the article in question is an in-depth exploration of the community of people, their beliefs, the personalities involved, what they believe, their education background and many more things. What have you done? Nada.

I can go on and tear down your whole reply, but I'll stop here.I come off with the impression that you're taking this personally and therefore, as a natural response, you're defending it, which is fine. I'm not trying to be a dick, but perhaps you should work on your argumentation and logic skills before trying to defend or take any side.

You're reading me very uncharitably. I believe that debunking this article properly, point-by-point and with overwhelming evidence, will take stupidly big amounts of time and is almost an impossible task - since no matter what I say, people with the same approach as the author can find something else to twist into criticism. On the other hand, Googling quotes he uses and checking them with source material is easy and provides ample proof that the article is dishonest. It's something a reader can do, and I want to clearly state that in this case, they absolutely should.

RodericDay asked about three concrete examples taken from the article; each of them is a perfect example how utterly nonsense this article is. I provided relevant source material and explained the real meaning of quotes Bond uses when taken in context of said source material. So did other HNers. Check out the responses in the parallel subthreads. I could do it for every one of his sentences but frankly, I feel it's a waste of time. I think I've proven enough that this is not an honest criticism, and fact-checking the rest of that article shall be the task for the reader, who is now properly warned.

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