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For a much grimmer and soul-wrenching take on this, read Meditations on Moloch by Scott Alexander: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditation

For a much grimmer and soul-wrenching take on this, read Meditations on Moloch by Scott Alexander: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditations-on-moloch https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditation...

radu_floricica 6y ago
And the yin to that yang: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/28/moloch-hasnt-won/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/28/moloch-hasnt-won/ Longer series, but the first post does a good job of summarizing Meditations on Moloch. Somewhat offtopic, try listenig to the original poem on youtube. It's a treat.
dpc_pw 6y ago
Meditations on Moloch made such an impact on me, that I routinely say aloud "Moloch" when I spot circumstances of competition leading to otherwise irrationally bad outcomes. Sort of in a religious way. :) I went to comments exactly to see if anyone mentioned it already. BTW. The efficiency (specialization) vs redundancy (genericity) is a kind of jing-jang, fractal thing and is part of how the universe ... dances... I'd say (inspired by Alan Watts lectures). Systems have cycles where they build specilization up until it becomes so fragile and unstable that it blows up and genericity takes over again. I don't know if that's like some law of cybernetics or something. Similar to how stability on one level of analysis leads to instability in the one above it (well described in Taleb's book).
oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
>an ancient Carthaginian demon This shouldn't bother me but it really does. For a community striving to be less wrong, how does someone write a 47-minute long post about Moloch but not know Moloch? It doesn't really matter since it's about the metaphor not the actual Moloch, but I guess it's because of where it's posted. Not sure if there's a name for it but there's a phenomena where if you say you care about something, you'll get a lot of flak for it compared to if you never mention it. Kind of like how Google always gets a lot of bad press since they claim to care about X when VCs for example have a much worse record but don't really get mentioned. With lesswrong's reputation, I can't help but be really put off by the inaccuracy.
- pcstl 6y ago
  I guess a big part of it is that Scott just took the name from the Ginsberg poem and probably only did a quick lookup on who Moloch actually was (as he was more interested in Ginsberg's Moloch than in the Canaanite Moloch)?
  - mdemare 6y ago
    Considering Scott's interest in things kabbalistic (e.g. Unsong), and his general erudition, I suspect he knows more about the origins of Moloch than you give him credit for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#Carthaginian_Cronus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#Carthaginian_Cronus
    - oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
      At this point I'm just being pedantic, but that does not explain why he called Moloch a demon.
      - the_other 6y ago
        Horned deity which eats children? Sounds exactly like a demon to me.
        oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
        I think that's a stretch. I don't think the ancient Canaanites viewed Moloch as evil. Even Milton and Flaubert consider him a god. I think such definitions only make sense within the context of the religion. I could argue that Yaweh is a demon because he is evil (has also asked for child sacrifice among other things), but that is an absurd claim within the religion where by definition he is good and the source of morality. So by calling Moloch a demon, you are participating in perpetuating a potentially false history of Moloch that is heavily biased and Judeocentric. Sure you can call him an evil pagan god, but to call him a demon requires fitting that into a prior belief system of evil supernatural entities which is inconsistent with the very belief system he came from.

radu_floricica 6y ago

And the yin to that yang: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/28/moloch-hasnt-won/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/28/moloch-hasnt-won/ Longer series, but the first post does a good job of summarizing Meditations on Moloch. Somewhat offtopic, try listenig to the original poem on youtube. It's a treat.

dpc_pw 6y ago

Meditations on Moloch made such an impact on me, that I routinely say aloud "Moloch" when I spot circumstances of competition leading to otherwise irrationally bad outcomes. Sort of in a religious way. :) I went to comments exactly to see if anyone mentioned it already. BTW. The efficiency (specialization) vs redundancy (genericity) is a kind of jing-jang, fractal thing and is part of how the universe ... dances... I'd say (inspired by Alan Watts lectures). Systems have cycles where they build specilization up until it becomes so fragile and unstable that it blows up and genericity takes over again. I don't know if that's like some law of cybernetics or something. Similar to how stability on one level of analysis leads to instability in the one above it (well described in Taleb's book).

oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago

>an ancient Carthaginian demon This shouldn't bother me but it really does. For a community striving to be less wrong, how does someone write a 47-minute long post about Moloch but not know Moloch? It doesn't really matter since it's about the metaphor not the actual Moloch, but I guess it's because of where it's posted. Not sure if there's a name for it but there's a phenomena where if you say you care about something, you'll get a lot of flak for it compared to if you never mention it. Kind of like how Google always gets a lot of bad press since they claim to care about X when VCs for example have a much worse record but don't really get mentioned. With lesswrong's reputation, I can't help but be really put off by the inaccuracy.

pcstl 6y ago
I guess a big part of it is that Scott just took the name from the Ginsberg poem and probably only did a quick lookup on who Moloch actually was (as he was more interested in Ginsberg's Moloch than in the Canaanite Moloch)?
- mdemare 6y ago
  Considering Scott's interest in things kabbalistic (e.g. Unsong), and his general erudition, I suspect he knows more about the origins of Moloch than you give him credit for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#Carthaginian_Cronus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#Carthaginian_Cronus
  - oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
    At this point I'm just being pedantic, but that does not explain why he called Moloch a demon.
    - the_other 6y ago
      Horned deity which eats children? Sounds exactly like a demon to me.
      - oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
        I think that's a stretch. I don't think the ancient Canaanites viewed Moloch as evil. Even Milton and Flaubert consider him a god. I think such definitions only make sense within the context of the religion. I could argue that Yaweh is a demon because he is evil (has also asked for child sacrifice among other things), but that is an absurd claim within the religion where by definition he is good and the source of morality. So by calling Moloch a demon, you are participating in perpetuating a potentially false history of Moloch that is heavily biased and Judeocentric. Sure you can call him an evil pagan god, but to call him a demon requires fitting that into a prior belief system of evil supernatural entities which is inconsistent with the very belief system he came from.