Eliezer Schlomo Yudkowsky / LessWrong

[Pointless Pedant]

I remember these guys, mostly for writing godawful, pompous fanfiction. They're self-aware enough to tone down the Mary Sue, but not enough to make it work. Both Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and Luminosity (Twilight fanfic) basically go like this: re-imagined "rationalist" main character discovers a magical world and immediately shows everyone up and improves a bunch of stuff by being "rational", they then get trounced by someone even better than they are proving they're not all powerful, and it ends with them getting to rule optimize the world in the end anyway because a side character helps them onto a throne they couldn't win themselves. Somehow, they manage to keep the throne despite their ineptitude and optimize the world. The End.

Scott Alexander is an actual psychiatrist instead of a programmer or self-taught whatever, and his blog posts seem sane, especially the psychiatry ones. I think he broke up with his "girl"friend a while back. Honestly looking back at it she had all the classic characteristics of a super-woke troon, though I didn't know enough about troons to spot it at the time: autism, BPD, fundie parents, polyamory, "queer" girl in a relationship with a male programmer, never mentioned being attracted to women, stay-at-home mom, tried camming for money, gender studies graduate, etc.

Can you link where you found out all that stuff about the troon? I remember seeing some of Scott's writing but I don't recall much about relationships other than that he was a polygamist in what sounded like some weird Californian cult describing itself as "rationalist" but following a Harry Potter fan fiction author as their messiah.

The closest he ever got to being a lolcow from what I saw was this article.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/

It's cripplingly autistic so I don't expect anyone here to read through it, but it's a bizarre mix of some weirdly progressive ideas (a load of trigger warnings about "fatphobia" at the start) and a load of quasi-incel whining about how feminists are the REAL racists that sounds like something off KotakuInAction. He condemns the manosphere, but then compares feminists laughing at incels to the Israeli conquest of Palestine and proceeds to make a Mike Powell-worthy leap of logic by saying that intelligent people are more likely to be miserable and alone because they have less sex in high school - so an alcoholic war veteran who got his high school girlfriend pregnant is happy now? Give me strength. He basically has an incel's view of sex where he thinks it's the solution to everything and doesn't realise that bad relationships can lead to intense misery and dismay in themselves. He keeps talking about this serial domestic abuser guy and how he keeps getting laid, without really acknowledging that these relationships are probably horribly tumultuous and the criminal is likely confused and miserable most of the time, venting his anger on the stupid women who fall for him, whereas Scott is sitting on his autistic arse blogging about it and not worrying about ending up in prison and then being saddled with chronic unemployment and debt into old age. Asinine.

The main reason I remember it is that Scott is an unusual example of someone who isn't a leftist making a dumb Harry Potter comment in a political essay. This passage stood out at me even among all the other autism.

And the people who talk about “Nice Guys” – and the people who enable them, praise them, and link to them – are blurring the already rather thin line between “feminism” and “literally Voldemort”

I might give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was mocking the left doing it, but I doubt it.

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

Can you link where you found out all that stuff about the troon? I remember seeing some of Scott's writing but I don't recall much about relationships other than that he was a polygamist in what sounded like some weird Californian cult describing itself as "rationalist" but following a Harry Potter fan fiction author as their messiah.

The closest he ever got to being a lolcow from what I saw was this article.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/

It's cripplingly autistic so I don't expect anyone here to read through it, but it's a bizarre mix of some weirdly progressive ideas (a load of trigger warnings about "fatphobia" at the start) and a load of quasi-incel whining about how feminists are the REAL racists that sounds like something off KotakuInAction. He condemns the manosphere, but then compares feminists laughing at incels to the Israeli conquest of Palestine and proceeds to make a Mike Powell-worthy leap of logic by saying that intelligent people are more likely to be miserable and alone because they have less sex in high school - so an alcoholic war veteran who got his high school girlfriend pregnant is happy now? Give me strength. He basically has an incel's view of sex where he thinks it's the solution to everything and doesn't realise that bad relationships can lead to intense misery and dismay in themselves. He keeps talking about this serial domestic abuser guy and how he keeps getting laid, without really acknowledging that these relationships are probably horribly tumultuous and the criminal is likely confused and miserable most of the time, venting his anger on the stupid women who fall for him, whereas Scott is sitting on his autistic arse blogging about it and not worrying about ending up in prison and then being saddled with chronic unemployment and debt into old age. Asinine.

The main reason I remember it is that Scott is an unusual example of someone who isn't a leftist making a dumb Harry Potter comment in a political essay. This passage stood out at me even among all the other autism.



I might give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was mocking the left doing it, but I doubt it.

He probably was: he doesn't like people making inaccurate analogies and has made a lot of arguments against comparing Trump to Hitler (along the lines of "if you compare everyone you don't like to the Nazis, then you make the word worthless and prevent us from actually recognizing Nazis").

 

[Jungle Princess]

Can you link where you found out all that stuff about the troon? I remember seeing some of Scott's writing but I don't recall much about relationships other than that he was a polygamist in what sounded like some weird Californian cult describing itself as "rationalist" but following a Harry Potter fan fiction author as their messiah.

The closest he ever got to being a lolcow from what I saw was this article.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/

It's cripplingly autistic so I don't expect anyone here to read through it, but it's a bizarre mix of some weirdly progressive ideas (a load of trigger warnings about "fatphobia" at the start) and a load of quasi-incel whining about how feminists are the REAL racists that sounds like something off KotakuInAction. He condemns the manosphere, but then compares feminists laughing at incels to the Israeli conquest of Palestine and proceeds to make a Mike Powell-worthy leap of logic by saying that intelligent people are more likely to be miserable and alone because they have less sex in high school - so an alcoholic war veteran who got his high school girlfriend pregnant is happy now? Give me strength. He basically has an incel's view of sex where he thinks it's the solution to everything and doesn't realise that bad relationships can lead to intense misery and dismay in themselves. He keeps talking about this serial domestic abuser guy and how he keeps getting laid, without really acknowledging that these relationships are probably horribly tumultuous and the criminal is likely confused and miserable most of the time, venting his anger on the stupid women who fall for him, whereas Scott is sitting on his autistic arse blogging about it and not worrying about ending up in prison and then being saddled with chronic unemployment and debt into old age. Asinine.

The main reason I remember it is that Scott is an unusual example of someone who isn't a leftist making a dumb Harry Potter comment in a political essay. This passage stood out at me even among all the other autism.



I might give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was mocking the left doing it, but I doubt it.

I know the Harry Potter fanfic from its very thorough cataloging on TV Tropes.

There's apparently some scientific errors.

 

[Oh Long Johnson]

Can you link where you found out all that stuff about the troon? I remember seeing some of Scott's writing but I don't recall much about relationships other than that he was a polygamist in what sounded like some weird Californian cult describing itself as "rationalist" but following a Harry Potter fan fiction author as their messiah.

He had tons of shit about the troon on SSC, including several articles written by the troon and at least one Q&A. She was also in the comments frequently around 2015-2016, I think.

I haven't looked and I'm not going to, but I assume Scott deleted all that after the breakup. It was all boring as fuck, illustrating emotionally retarded people. Troonery was probably the one thing at that point you could troll the comments with and get him to lose his mind.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

I know the Harry Potter fanfic from its very thorough cataloging on TV Tropes.

View attachment 1007832

There's apparently some scientific errors.
View attachment 1007833

Given Yudkowsky doesn't have any kind of serious formal education in any science, that's not surprising. Also fan fiction writers in general aren't a very astute lot.

 

[fat ugly sped]

these guys are basically the center of the Venn diagram of a huge number of other lolcow communities, including all the sexual ones: polyamory, AI spergs, woo, euphoric atheism, troon, furry... the list goes on. Despite that, they're not actually that interesting themselves, beyond the way that they accrete maladjusted autists.

Yeah I can confirm all of those, and add a couple more. Magic: The Gathering, swing / lindy hop / blues / "fusion" dancing, tabletop gaming, vegetarian / vegan / animal rights activism, unschooling, BDSM, psychedelic drug enthusiasts, catholicism, intentional communities, seasteading, "authentic relating", and probably more that I'm just blanking on right now. The fundamental issue is that the "community" is, roughly speaking, a loose association of 95th percentile Trait Openness individuals. Combine that with the rampant ADHD and there's basically nobody going "you know, maybe we shouldn't get involved with that, shit's weird".

The publicly-listed events and groups largely function as a combination of containment zone and purgatory for the non-functional tranche of the movement, though, so apparently things get significantly better in the more exclusive and private areas. But yeah, the scene isn't really all that worthwhile in and of itself.

Anyhow, happenings:

Masked Camp Meeker suspects combative, incoherent, deputies say

The suspects have been physically combative with law enforcement and have been speaking in an incoherent language since they were detained, a sheriff’s official said.

www.pressdemocrat.com

tl;dr - five batshit insane people show up to aggressively protest a CFAR event in black robes and Guy Fawkes masks, SWAT gets called, they get arrested as they continue to act batshit insane, refuse to identify themselves to police, and make absolutely zero goddamn sense to the normies who got called in to assess the situation.

Schizophrenic as fuck related blog of a rationalist-troon that I have good reason to believe was involved: https://sinceriously.fyi/

Sorry for no archives/quotes, on my phone right now, but trust me this shit is peak farms content

 

[chroma]

Yeah I can confirm all of those, and add a couple more. Magic: The Gathering, swing / lindy hop / blues / "fusion" dancing, tabletop gaming, vegetarian / vegan / animal rights activism, unschooling, BDSM, psychedelic drug enthusiasts, catholicism, intentional communities, seasteading, "authentic relating", and probably more that I'm just blanking on right now. The fundamental issue is that the "community" is, roughly speaking, a loose association of 95th percentile Trait Openness individuals. Combine that with the rampant ADHD and there's basically nobody going "you know, maybe we shouldn't get involved with that, shit's weird".

The publicly-listed events and groups largely function as a combination of containment zone and purgatory for the non-functional tranche of the movement, though, so apparently things get significantly better in the more exclusive and private areas. But yeah, the scene isn't really all that worthwhile in and of itself.

Anyhow, happenings:

Masked Camp Meeker suspects combative, incoherent, deputies say

The suspects have been physically combative with law enforcement and have been speaking in an incoherent language since they were detained, a sheriff’s official said.

www.pressdemocrat.com

tl;dr - five batshit insane people show up to aggressively protest a CFAR event in black robes and Guy Fawkes masks, SWAT gets called, they get arrested as they continue to act batshit insane, refuse to identify themselves to police, and make absolutely zero goddamn sense to the normies who got called in to assess the situation.

Schizophrenic as fuck related blog of a rationalist-troon that I have good reason to believe was involved: https://sinceriously.fyi/

Sorry for no archives/quotes, on my phone right now, but trust me this shit is peak farms content

From the article:

“It’s a disturbing time that we live in,” she said. “Humans don’t behave how I’d like them to, most of the time.”

Who says "humans" in that sentence instead of "people"?

Oh and https://sinceriously.fyi/ is full of gems such as:

Sometimes cops harass me for wearing my religious attire as a Sith. (As a Sith, I’m religiously required to do whatever I want, and for now that so happens to include wearing black robes.)

This isn't your normal crazy. This is advanced crazy.

Also there are some accusations on a recent post: https://sinceriously.fyi/intersex-brains-and-conceptual-warfare/ (search for "blackmail" to find the relevant part).

Apparently the author thinks that several people at MIRI committed statutory rape, covered it up, got blackmailed, paid the blackmail, and then covered *that* up. I bet that's the group's motivation for crashing the CFAR event.

What a wild ride.

 

[Arkancide Pact]

I don't care about anything else, the whole Roko's Basilisk thing and how seriously they took it was a real glimpse into crazy.

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

Who says "humans" in that sentence instead of "people"?

The severely autistic. If you follow this thread, it should be obvious that LessWrong is what happens when a bunch of spergs try to form their own social group.

 

[chroma]

The severely autistic. If you follow this thread, it should be obvious that LessWrong is what happens when a bunch of spergs try to form their own social group.

The quote is by a woman who lived a mile south of the event, not by someone involved in it:

DeAne Wilson, who lives about a mile south of the camp, saw an emergency alert about the incident, prompting her and her housemate to avoid going outdoors. They texted friends and browsed the internet to figure out what was happening while deputies sped toward the scene and the Sheriff’s Office’s helicopter buzzed overhead.

...

“It’s a disturbing time that we live in,” she said. “Humans don’t behave how I’d like them to, most of the time.”

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

The quote is by a woman who lived a mile south of the event, not by someone involved in it:

She caught the autism by proximity.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

I will give Scott Alexander credit for one thing. Since he's a psychiatrist, he actually sees autism in the face on a regular basis and supports curing it. He even goes as far to mention the cost to the taxpayer of keeping useless spergs alive, which is deeply triggering.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/10/12/against-against-autism-cures/

Unsurprisingly, he mentions that he gets called autistic, but he knows the difference between the internet use of "autism" as a figurative insult and the real thing.

 

[Jan Ciągwa]

Funny how Yudkowsky reminds me of Dr. Beruga.

He too had unhealthy obsession with immortality and useless people.

 

[Kabuki Actor]

To what degree is the LW community mostly into tvtropes fare? I know the big Y apparently thinks that Fateshit has comparable literary quality to Shakespeare and the big names of rat fiction are about colonizing things like MLP with their takes on game theory, instead of fiction that actually revolves around intelligence or even science.

 

[Jan Ciągwa]

Spoiler: DEEP THOUGHTS

"Intelligence" is an adjective, just like "height" is. Being "tall" has no meaning in void, there has to be a relative object of measure - without it, an object is neither "tall" or "short"; it just has X meters of length upwards. The same's with intelligence - you can be an intelligent mathematician, sportsman, a smart fighter etc. but at the same time a stupid lawyer, dumb biologist etc.

"Intelligence" by itself is defined as an degree of unpredictability - you're a smarter bridge designer than your friend because your friend can't predict too well what a bridge you will design, but that doesn't mean that you have to be able to predict your friend's bridge design, too.

Thus, a "self-improving AI" can be a great designer of self-improving AIs, but an idiot at everything else - so the only thing this endgame godlike AI will know how to do is making an equally godlike AI. That's certainly a threat, because maybe even making a single godlike AI takes up all resources in the universe, but hardly Skynet IMO.

...just as Yudkowsky is an intelligent thinker of cognitive biases, but does anyone expect this guy to actually make an AI, at all?

I read Yud's autobiography (yes, this guy wrote one when barely reaching 20yo) and the biggest CS thing he did was "gaining a deep understanding of C++" and helping finish a community-worked, useless Common Lisp dialect.

EDIT:
IMO the solution to this stupid "paperclip maximizer" idiom is to create a think-tank AI; it can give ideas but doesn't have ambitions, agendas, drive to convince you and all that puny weak human emotions. There always will be idiots in power who will go through dumb AI ideas but you don't need AI for them to exist and humanity is still fine to this day.

 

[chroma]

IMO the solution to this stupid "paperclip maximizer" idiom is to create a think-tank AI; it can give ideas but doesn't have ambitions, agendas, drive to convince you and all that puny weak human emotions. There always will be idiots in power who will go through dumb AI ideas but you don't need AI for them to exist and humanity is still fine to this day.

This is called an oracle or tool AI (as opposed to an agent AI which acts directly on the outside world). Much has been written about this topic, and the consensus is that agent AIs would be favored for economic and performance reasons. Here is a post explaining the issues in detail.

 

[Citation Checking Project]

He's been mentioned itt so I guess it fits here.

Scott Alexander, the equivalent of Null for SlateStar Codex, is packing his bags to run away from Kiwi Farms New York Times l33t doxers. He's terrified of swatting and termination.
Needless to say, Reddit isn't happy, neither are rationalist public figures. It remains to be seen what the NYT will or will not publicize.

source

Spoiler: fulltext

NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Deleting The Blog
So, I kind of deleted the blog. Sorry. Here’s my explanation.
Last week I talked to a New York Times technology reporter who was planning to write a story on Slate Star Codex. He told me it would be a mostly positive piece about how we were an interesting gathering place for people in tech, and how we were ahead of the curve on some aspects of the coronavirus situation. It probably would have been a very nice article.
Unfortunately, he told me he had discovered my real name and would reveal it in the article, ie doxx me. “Scott Alexander” is my real first and middle name, but I’ve tried to keep my last name secret. I haven’t always done great at this, but I’ve done better than “have it get printed in the New York Times“.
I have a lot of reasons for staying pseudonymous. First, I’m a psychiatrist, and psychiatrists are kind of obsessive about preventing their patients from knowing anything about who they are outside of work. You can read more about this in this Scientific American article – and remember that the last psychiatrist blogger to get doxxed abandoned his blog too. I am not one of the big sticklers on this, but I’m more of a stickler than “let the New York Times tell my patients where they can find my personal blog”. I think it’s plausible that if I became a national news figure under my real name, my patients – who run the gamut from far-left anarchists to far-right gun nuts – wouldn’t be able to engage with me in a normal therapeutic way. I also worry that my clinic would decide I am more of a liability than an asset and let me go, which would leave hundreds of patients in a dangerous situation as we tried to transition their care.
The second reason is more prosaic: some people want to kill me or ruin my life, and I would prefer not to make it too easy. I’ve received various death threats. I had someone on an anti-psychiatry subreddit put out a bounty for any information that could take me down (the mods deleted the post quickly, which I am grateful for). I’ve had dissatisfied blog readers call my work pretending to be dissatisfied patients in order to get me fired. And I recently learned that someone on SSC got SWATted in a way that they link to using their real name on the blog. I live with ten housemates including a three-year-old and an infant, and I would prefer this not happen to me or to them. Although I realize I accept some risk of this just by writing a blog with imperfect anonymity, getting doxxed on national news would take it to another level.
When I expressed these fears to the reporter, he said that it was New York Times policy to include real names, and he couldn’t change that. After considering my options, I decided on the one you see now. If there’s no blog, there’s no story. Or at least the story will have to include some discussion of NYT’s strategy of doxxing random bloggers for clicks.
I want to make it clear that I’m not saying I believe I’m above news coverage, or that people shouldn’t be allowed to express their opinion of my blog. If someone wants to write a hit piece about me, whatever, that’s life. If someone thinks I am so egregious that I don’t deserve the mask of anonymity, then I guess they have to name me, the same way they name criminals and terrorists. This wasn’t that. By all indications, this was just going to be a nice piece saying I got some things about coronavirus right early on. Getting punished for my crimes would at least be predictable, but I am not willing to be punished for my virtues.
I’m not sure what happens next. In my ideal world, the New York Times realizes they screwed up, promises not to use my real name in the article, and promises to rethink their strategy of doxxing random bloggers for clicks. Then I put the blog back up (of course I backed it up! I’m not a monster!) and we forget this ever happened.
Otherwise, I’m going to lie low for a while and see what happens. Maybe all my fears are totally overblown and nothing happens and I feel dumb. Maybe I get fired and keeping my job stops mattering. I’m not sure. I’d feel stupid if I caused the amount of ruckus this will probably cause and then caved and reopened immediately. But I would also be surprised if I never came back. We’ll see.
In the meantime, I’ll take the first vacation I’ve had in seven years (where “vacation” = only working my day job). I intend to finally finish editing Unsong (sorry! I have no excuse for it taking this long!), work on my maintenance of certification, and pursue other longer-term projects. I’m interested in seeing what I can do when freed of the obligation to produce two essays a week.
(and realistically I’ll probably blog a bunch elsewhere under transparently false names)
I’ve gotten an amazing amount of support the past few days as this situation played out. You don’t need to send me more – message very much received. I love all of you so much. I realize I am making your lives harder by taking the blog down. At some point I’ll figure out a way to make it up to you.
In the meantime, you can still use the r/slatestarcodex subreddit for sober non-political discussion, the not-officially-affiliated-with-us r/themotte subreddit for crazy heated political debate, and the SSC Discord server for whatever it is people do on Discord. Also, my biggest regret is I won’t get to blog about Gwern’s work with GPT-3, so go over and check it out.
There’s a SUBSCRIBE BY EMAIL button on the left – put your name there if you want to know if the blog restarts or something else interesting happens. I’ll make sure all relevant updates make it onto the subreddit, so watch that space.
There is no comments section for this post. The appropriate comments section is the feedback page of the New York Times. You may also want to email the New York Times technology editor Pui-Wing Tam at pui-wing.tam@nytimes.com, contact her on Twitter at @puiwingtam, or phone the New York Times at 844-NYTNEWS.
(please be polite – I don’t know if Ms. Tam was personally involved in this decision, and whoever is stuck answering feedback forms definitely wasn’t. Remember that you are representing me and the SSC community, and I will be very sad if you are a jerk to anybody. Please just explain the situation and ask them to stop doxxing random bloggers for clicks. If you are some sort of important tech person who the New York Times technology section might want to maintain good relations with, mention that.)
If you are a journalist who is willing to respect my desire for pseudonymity, I’m interested in talking to you about this situation (though I prefer communicating through text, not phone). My email is scott@slatestarcodex.com.

 

[Absolutego]

Scott is such a frustrating blogger. This "DFE and run away" strategy is him to a T, and it's always made him look like a spineless coward.
I get the concern about his practice being compromised if his patients knew about his blog (though that ship has sailed for years, we've known his powerword for like a decade now, he has a goddamn rationalwiki page at the top of his name + "psychiatry" search), but Scott's also run away at the slightest hint of public pressure in the past and I can't help but think this is more about preventing IRL blowback in whatever San Francisco poly commune he lives in.

 

[Suck the Cock]

Scott is such a frustrating blogger. This "DFE and run away" strategy is him to a T, and it's always made him look like a spineless coward.
I get the concern about his practice being compromised if his patients knew about his blog (though that ship has sailed for years, we've known his powerword for like a decade now, he has a goddamn rationalwiki page at the top of his name + "psychiatry" search), but Scott's also run away at the slightest hint of public pressure in the past and I can't help but think this is more about preventing IRL blowback in whatever San Francisco poly commune he lives in.

Uh, you might want to reconsider linking to his blog in a post about how he just deleted his blog posts. We have archives for a reason.

 

[Absolutego]

Uh, you might want to reconsider linking to his blog in a post about how he just deleted his blog posts. We have archives for a reason.

the fact that that particular URL went to a blank page was part of the joke. He deleted and un-deleted his "hey maybe calling Trump an open white supremacist when he posts tweets about how much he loves Mexicans and keeps visiting HBUs is muddying the waters a bit" blog like six times prior to the current deletion spree. It's why I dislike him. He does this primadonna attention-whoring shit all the time with regard to his IRL name when a) he clearly cares more about the immediate social pressure than any online blowback, and b) he's running his goddamn Patreon under his own name as it is

Why should I take his internet safety even remotely seriously when he only does this shit for attention?