5 ms·

As an aside, how is the SSC community? Rewarding like HN? I accommodate irreverence well, but I don’t have a field guide for what this community might actually

by dfee 4y ago

As an aside, how is the SSC community? Rewarding like HN? I accommodate irreverence well, but I don’t have a field guide for what this community might actually be about. Any tips from long time participants?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
h-w 4y ago
There can be a good number of opinionated armchair know it all‘s, but, like HN, if you’re willing to sift through comments there’s lots of great insight and references you might not come across on your own.
astrange 4y ago
> I don’t have a field guide for what this community might actually be about. It's part of "online rationalism" which is supposedly a community based around lesswrong where they practice thinking about things logically, with some techniques that work and some that don't. More accurately it's a new religion that ascribes untrue magical powers to Bayes' theorem, probability theory, computers and AI research, gives people a life mission called "effective altruism", thinks if you program computers really well they'll become "superintelligences" and take over the world which needs to be stopped, and so on. This is why he says things about "rationality" in the post and is so approving about that Yudkowsky guy. SSC years ago had some undeserved drama where the kind of online humanities-degree activist types who call you "tech bros" yelled at him, so I think the community also has people intentionally trying to make themselves into their image of a "tech bro" as a reaction to that. (nb "religion" is not meant as an insult or a metaphor, starting new religions is what people do in Berkeley and this is just another one of them.)
- Tenoke 4y ago
  >untrue magical powers to Bayes' theorem, probability theory, computers Untrue magical powers? Just because people appreciate those things it doesn't mean they ascribe magical powers to them. That's like saying that HN ascribes magical powers to startups or chip architectures.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Well they're rationalists, so they ascribe it magical rationality powers. They invoke Bayes' theorem for its property of being optimal, but it's optimal (and trivial) when you know the priors. The hard part is knowing those, and they don't, so they just use it in a metaphorical/mindset way that doesn't actually mean anything, pretend they don't have actual beliefs so they don't need to take responsibility for them, and say "prior" a lot. (https://metarationality.com/bayesianism-updating https://metarationality.com/bayesianism-updating) In general, using probability theory as a way of thinking doesn't work because it can't reject infinitesimally likely but infinitely bad futures, which is why they're overly concerned with imaginary future AIs torturing them, and it ignores "unknown unknowns" and can only handle enumerated futures you already thought of, which is why they have that odd tendency to start polycules because it seems logical and then their girlfriends unexpectedly leave them. (That's also how you know it's a Berkeley new religion - weird sex practices.)
    - Tenoke 4y ago
      You are the only person ascribing it magical powers. The majority definitely do not and are well aware of the limitations, the problem with priors is talked about all the time in the community in much more detail. >In general, using probability theory as a way of thinking doesn't work because it can't reject infinitesimally likely but infinitely bad futures Another thing frequently discussed in those circles. >(That's also how you know it's a Berkeley new religion - weird sex practices.) Some people being sexually adventurous in California, the horror.
      - astrange 4y ago
        > Another thing frequently discussed in those circles. That’s the problem, they shouldn’t be discussing it ;) > Some people being sexually adventurous in California, the horror. I could’ve said “joining cults like Leverage” instead of polycules but that would be mean. However like I did say, the problem with being a young man who gets into an open relationship because you rationally determined it was optimal is, you’re wrong and your girlfriend is going to leave you. If you’re going to have weird sex, at least have a more fun reason for it. (There’s a tweet I want to link here about a rationalist nude sex party where they all sat around discussing immigration politics instead of having said adventures, but unfortunately I can’t remember how to spell Aeolla to find it.)
mattcwilson 4y ago
Interesting that you know it as the SSC community, because Scott (TFA’s author)’s original site was Slate Star Codex. The new Substack where this was posted is Astral Codex Ten. Both are (near)anagrams for his nom de plume, Scott Alexander. Anyway - I’ve lurked both for ~6-7 years. The best summary I can give is that Scott is an excellent and insightful author at his best, prone to certain idiosyncrasies, but who attracts a pretty thoughtful and generally pleasant commenter community. The bias in astrange’s position is grounded in some factual truth, but I would argue that Scott’s commenter community is not entirely in the “rationality” camp, even if that’s a big part of how Scott reached his audience. The bigger part, imo, are the incredible series of articles he wrote circa 2014-2016 on a breadth of topics, many that still hold up. I’d say check it out for the articles and see how you feel about the comments. Take astrange for what it’s worth, with a liberal dose of salt

by dfee 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

h-w 4y ago

There can be a good number of opinionated armchair know it all‘s, but, like HN, if you’re willing to sift through comments there’s lots of great insight and references you might not come across on your own.

astrange 4y ago

> I don’t have a field guide for what this community might actually be about. It's part of "online rationalism" which is supposedly a community based around lesswrong where they practice thinking about things logically, with some techniques that work and some that don't. More accurately it's a new religion that ascribes untrue magical powers to Bayes' theorem, probability theory, computers and AI research, gives people a life mission called "effective altruism", thinks if you program computers really well they'll become "superintelligences" and take over the world which needs to be stopped, and so on. This is why he says things about "rationality" in the post and is so approving about that Yudkowsky guy. SSC years ago had some undeserved drama where the kind of online humanities-degree activist types who call you "tech bros" yelled at him, so I think the community also has people intentionally trying to make themselves into their image of a "tech bro" as a reaction to that. (nb "religion" is not meant as an insult or a metaphor, starting new religions is what people do in Berkeley and this is just another one of them.)

Tenoke 4y ago
>untrue magical powers to Bayes' theorem, probability theory, computers Untrue magical powers? Just because people appreciate those things it doesn't mean they ascribe magical powers to them. That's like saying that HN ascribes magical powers to startups or chip architectures.
- astrange 4y ago
  Well they're rationalists, so they ascribe it magical rationality powers. They invoke Bayes' theorem for its property of being optimal, but it's optimal (and trivial) when you know the priors. The hard part is knowing those, and they don't, so they just use it in a metaphorical/mindset way that doesn't actually mean anything, pretend they don't have actual beliefs so they don't need to take responsibility for them, and say "prior" a lot. (https://metarationality.com/bayesianism-updating https://metarationality.com/bayesianism-updating) In general, using probability theory as a way of thinking doesn't work because it can't reject infinitesimally likely but infinitely bad futures, which is why they're overly concerned with imaginary future AIs torturing them, and it ignores "unknown unknowns" and can only handle enumerated futures you already thought of, which is why they have that odd tendency to start polycules because it seems logical and then their girlfriends unexpectedly leave them. (That's also how you know it's a Berkeley new religion - weird sex practices.)
  - Tenoke 4y ago
    You are the only person ascribing it magical powers. The majority definitely do not and are well aware of the limitations, the problem with priors is talked about all the time in the community in much more detail. >In general, using probability theory as a way of thinking doesn't work because it can't reject infinitesimally likely but infinitely bad futures Another thing frequently discussed in those circles. >(That's also how you know it's a Berkeley new religion - weird sex practices.) Some people being sexually adventurous in California, the horror.
    - astrange 4y ago
      > Another thing frequently discussed in those circles. That’s the problem, they shouldn’t be discussing it ;) > Some people being sexually adventurous in California, the horror. I could’ve said “joining cults like Leverage” instead of polycules but that would be mean. However like I did say, the problem with being a young man who gets into an open relationship because you rationally determined it was optimal is, you’re wrong and your girlfriend is going to leave you. If you’re going to have weird sex, at least have a more fun reason for it. (There’s a tweet I want to link here about a rationalist nude sex party where they all sat around discussing immigration politics instead of having said adventures, but unfortunately I can’t remember how to spell Aeolla to find it.)

mattcwilson 4y ago

Interesting that you know it as the SSC community, because Scott (TFA’s author)’s original site was Slate Star Codex. The new Substack where this was posted is Astral Codex Ten. Both are (near)anagrams for his nom de plume, Scott Alexander. Anyway - I’ve lurked both for ~6-7 years. The best summary I can give is that Scott is an excellent and insightful author at his best, prone to certain idiosyncrasies, but who attracts a pretty thoughtful and generally pleasant commenter community. The bias in astrange’s position is grounded in some factual truth, but I would argue that Scott’s commenter community is not entirely in the “rationality” camp, even if that’s a big part of how Scott reached his audience. The bigger part, imo, are the incredible series of articles he wrote circa 2014-2016 on a breadth of topics, many that still hold up. I’d say check it out for the articles and see how you feel about the comments. Take astrange for what it’s worth, with a liberal dose of salt