3 ms·

Well, this is definitely the first time I’ve ever heard Lesswrongers described as conservative.

polygamous_bat 4y ago
The only way I could parse it was the following logical chain: Lesswrongers definitely bend more libertarian than the rest of the population, and the common aphorism that "libertarians are just conservatives who like to smoke weed". Although, with a few conversations that I have had with the "alignment" enthusiasts gave me the impression that in their opinion, many of the hot button issues like climate change/social inequality/global poverty etc. are irrelevant and not worth spending time over, because AI alignment is a much more serious threat. In that view, 90% or more of their political position overlaps with the conservative crowd ("issue X/Y/Z is not worth our time, and we should just let it happen as it does now"). So I am not surprised an outsider may label them as conservative.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  Yeah, libertarians who believe in universal basic income— yeah, that probably needs a new word. Capital-unism sounds awful enough
- gcr 4y ago
  There are strong parallels between a belief in AI supremacy (roko's basilisk and the like) and belief in divine punishment (pascal's wager and the like). I've heard people mockingly describe superintelligence as "catholicism for nerds," so I could certainly entertain the idea that lesswrongers are conservative.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- theelous3 4y ago
  If i believed in socially progressive lib values, but thought a non-explicitly progressive issue was a major immanent threat... you'd consider me conservative for the structure of my priorities? Not following the logic at all here.
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    The GP does not. They just describe how some people might (and absolutely do!) follow that train of thought.
    - theelous3 4y ago
      What specifically gives you that impression? They describe their experience talking to alignment people, characterise it with the 90% rule, and describe their preference for tackling the 90% issue as in line with apathetic or ideologically opposed to remedy conservatives. They then say they are not surprised outsiders might label them conservative - _just as they have_. They are describing their own view _and_ attributing their reasoning to others. But the argument isn't valid.
      - Sharlin 4y ago
        Nope, they're just saying that some people worrying about hard AGI takeoff argue that alignment is a more important problem to solve than many others because a) an aligned AGI can help us solve all the other problems, and b) an unaligned AGI can make all the other problems irrelevant due to, well, human extinction. So if you have liberal values and consider a hard takeoff a likely near-to-medium-term scenario, then it's perfectly reasonable to argue that you should prioritize alignment research over almost anything else, because it's a critical instrumental goal for achieving all your other goals. This by no means makes you any less of a liberal, or more of a conservative. But people who are more interested in virtue signalling than results, and/or don't know about or believe in a hard takeoff scenario, may interpret this train of thought as "conservative" because it appears to not match the standard thought patterns that a good, card-carrying liberal is supposed to have.
        wahnfrieden 4y ago
        what is the anti-state, anti-capital perspective on AGI safety?
- casebash 4y ago
  Just because people decide to focus their time on one issue (say AI), doesn't mean that they don't appreciate people working on other issues. Another example: I can appreciate a local soccer coach without having to believe that their work is equally important as that of the president/prime minister.
davidgerard 4y ago
The rationalist subculture is where neoreaction incubated, and it's still full of neoreactionaries.
- Sharlin 4y ago
  The last I saw (~10 years ago), the small but vocal neoreactionary minority (countable with the fingers of a single hand) of the lesswrong crowd went and founded their own blog (More Right, now defunct) and everybody else were happy to see them go if it meant less spamming Less Wrong with cringe stuff like race realism and pickup artistry. In all LW surveys to date, people who have identified as "conservative" or "reactionary" have been a tiny minority. There are many libertarians (whether "l" or "L" or whatever libertarianism means to different people), but the "liberal/social democrat" block is the largest. With regard to American party affiliation, the large majority lean Democrat. Most are atheist and lean consequentialist ethics, neither being a sign of conservative or reactionist values.
  - davidgerard 4y ago
    Dude, they're mask-off race scientists these days. Look at the ACX comments for example. Or at least two of the several recent scandals in EA.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      why do they hide it so well with simple tricks like surveys?
      - davidgerard 4y ago
        because there's a difference between self-reporting on one hand, and observed behaviour and the confessions of those involved when they don't think anyone's watching on the other, e.g. https://archive.is/LA95f https://archive.is/LA95f
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
In my experience, they do tend to have a remarkably authoritarian slant. Only in their view the people running everything and doing all the gatekeeping should be rational, intelligent people (like them, natch), not just whoever has the power to actually get these things done.
- Sharlin 4y ago
  Well, they definitely do not identify as authoritarian according to the annual surveys. Very few claim to be conservative or reactionist, most are either libertarians, liberals or social democrats. Anyway, the rationalist community was never about people who were particularly rational, it was all about people recognizing their own irrationality and biases that inescapably comes with being equipped with a human mind. Of course, that does not mean it didn't attract people who thought it was about being a tribe of us, the rational and enlightened people vs them, the irrational plebs. Which is rather ironic, of course.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  We have words for this already: technocracy, authoritarianism, etc. the liberals among them or capitalist libertarians don't round out the spectrum of political views when it comes to ideas that community popularly advocates. advocates for strong gatekeeping and violence against any public subversion of it, within a centralized power whether capital or state, is getting at different flavors of the same kind of tyranny that you'll end up with whether liberal, conservative, capitalist libertarian.

The only way I could parse it was the following logical chain: Lesswrongers definitely bend more libertarian than the rest of the population, and the common aphorism that "libertarians are just conservatives who like to smoke weed". Although, with a few conversations that I have had with the "alignment" enthusiasts gave me the impression that in their opinion, many of the hot button issues like climate change/social inequality/global poverty etc. are irrelevant and not worth spending time over, because AI alignment is a much more serious threat. In that view, 90% or more of their political position overlaps with the conservative crowd ("issue X/Y/Z is not worth our time, and we should just let it happen as it does now"). So I am not surprised an outsider may label them as conservative.

dr_dshiv 4y ago
Yeah, libertarians who believe in universal basic income— yeah, that probably needs a new word. Capital-unism sounds awful enough
gcr 4y ago
There are strong parallels between a belief in AI supremacy (roko's basilisk and the like) and belief in divine punishment (pascal's wager and the like). I've heard people mockingly describe superintelligence as "catholicism for nerds," so I could certainly entertain the idea that lesswrongers are conservative.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
theelous3 4y ago
If i believed in socially progressive lib values, but thought a non-explicitly progressive issue was a major immanent threat... you'd consider me conservative for the structure of my priorities? Not following the logic at all here.
- Sharlin 4y ago
  The GP does not. They just describe how some people might (and absolutely do!) follow that train of thought.
  - theelous3 4y ago
    What specifically gives you that impression? They describe their experience talking to alignment people, characterise it with the 90% rule, and describe their preference for tackling the 90% issue as in line with apathetic or ideologically opposed to remedy conservatives. They then say they are not surprised outsiders might label them conservative - _just as they have_. They are describing their own view _and_ attributing their reasoning to others. But the argument isn't valid.
    - Sharlin 4y ago
      Nope, they're just saying that some people worrying about hard AGI takeoff argue that alignment is a more important problem to solve than many others because a) an aligned AGI can help us solve all the other problems, and b) an unaligned AGI can make all the other problems irrelevant due to, well, human extinction. So if you have liberal values and consider a hard takeoff a likely near-to-medium-term scenario, then it's perfectly reasonable to argue that you should prioritize alignment research over almost anything else, because it's a critical instrumental goal for achieving all your other goals. This by no means makes you any less of a liberal, or more of a conservative. But people who are more interested in virtue signalling than results, and/or don't know about or believe in a hard takeoff scenario, may interpret this train of thought as "conservative" because it appears to not match the standard thought patterns that a good, card-carrying liberal is supposed to have.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        what is the anti-state, anti-capital perspective on AGI safety?
casebash 4y ago
Just because people decide to focus their time on one issue (say AI), doesn't mean that they don't appreciate people working on other issues. Another example: I can appreciate a local soccer coach without having to believe that their work is equally important as that of the president/prime minister.

davidgerard 4y ago

The rationalist subculture is where neoreaction incubated, and it's still full of neoreactionaries.

Sharlin 4y ago
The last I saw (~10 years ago), the small but vocal neoreactionary minority (countable with the fingers of a single hand) of the lesswrong crowd went and founded their own blog (More Right, now defunct) and everybody else were happy to see them go if it meant less spamming Less Wrong with cringe stuff like race realism and pickup artistry. In all LW surveys to date, people who have identified as "conservative" or "reactionary" have been a tiny minority. There are many libertarians (whether "l" or "L" or whatever libertarianism means to different people), but the "liberal/social democrat" block is the largest. With regard to American party affiliation, the large majority lean Democrat. Most are atheist and lean consequentialist ethics, neither being a sign of conservative or reactionist values.
- davidgerard 4y ago
  Dude, they're mask-off race scientists these days. Look at the ACX comments for example. Or at least two of the several recent scandals in EA.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    why do they hide it so well with simple tricks like surveys?
    - davidgerard 4y ago
      because there's a difference between self-reporting on one hand, and observed behaviour and the confessions of those involved when they don't think anyone's watching on the other, e.g. https://archive.is/LA95f https://archive.is/LA95f

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago

In my experience, they do tend to have a remarkably authoritarian slant. Only in their view the people running everything and doing all the gatekeeping should be rational, intelligent people (like them, natch), not just whoever has the power to actually get these things done.

Sharlin 4y ago
Well, they definitely do not identify as authoritarian according to the annual surveys. Very few claim to be conservative or reactionist, most are either libertarians, liberals or social democrats. Anyway, the rationalist community was never about people who were particularly rational, it was all about people recognizing their own irrationality and biases that inescapably comes with being equipped with a human mind. Of course, that does not mean it didn't attract people who thought it was about being a tribe of us, the rational and enlightened people vs them, the irrational plebs. Which is rather ironic, of course.
wahnfrieden 4y ago
We have words for this already: technocracy, authoritarianism, etc. the liberals among them or capitalist libertarians don't round out the spectrum of political views when it comes to ideas that community popularly advocates. advocates for strong gatekeeping and violence against any public subversion of it, within a centralized power whether capital or state, is getting at different flavors of the same kind of tyranny that you'll end up with whether liberal, conservative, capitalist libertarian.