this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2024
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SneerClub

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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.

AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)

This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.

[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]

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Extropia's Children, Chapter 1: The Wunderkind - a history of the early days of several of our very good friends (aiascendant.substack.com)
submitted 2 months ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/sneerclub@awful.systems
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[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

... "Coming of Age" also, oddly, describes another form of novel cognitive dissonance; encountering people who did not think Eliezer was the most intelligent person they had ever met, and then, more shocking yet, personally encountering people who seemed possibly more intelligent than himself.

The latter link is to "Competent Elities", a.k.a., "Yud fails to recognize that cocaine is a helluva drug".

I've met Jurvetson a few times. After the first I texted a friend: “Every other time I’ve met a VC I walked away thinking ‘Wow, I and all my friends are smarter than you.’ This time it was ‘Wow, you are smarter than me and all my friends.’“

Uh-huh.

Quick, to the Bat-Wikipedia:

On November 13, 2017, Jurvetson stepped down from his role at DFJ Venture Capital in addition to taking leave from the boards of SpaceX and Tesla following an internal DFJ investigation into allegations of sexual harassment.

Not smart enough to keep his dick in his pants, apparently.

Then, from 2006 to 2009, in what can be interpreted as an attempt to discover how his younger self made such a terrible mistake, and to avoid doing so again, Eliezer writes the 600,000 words of his Sequences, by blogging “almost daily, on the subjects of epistemology, language, cognitive biases, decision-making, quantum mechanics, metaethics, and artificial intelligence”

Or, in short, cult shit.

Between his Sequences and his Harry Potter fanfic, come 2015, Eliezer had promulgated his personal framework of rational thought — which was, as he put it, “about forming true beliefs and making decisions that help you win” — with extraordinary success. All the pieces seemed in place to foster a cohort of bright people who would overcome their unconscious biases, adjust their mindsets to consistently distinguish truth from falseness, and become effective thinkers who could build a better world ... and maybe save it from the scourge of runaway AI.

Which is why what happened next, explored in tomorrow’s chapter — the demons, the cults, the hells, the suicides — was, and is, so shocking.

Or not. See above, RE: cult shit.

[–] zogwarg@awful.systems 11 points 2 months ago

Reading about the hubris of young Yud is a bit sad, a proper Tragedy. Then I have to remind myself that he remains a manipulator, and that he should be old enough to stop believe—and promote—in magical thinking.