GorillasAreForEating @ GorillasAreForEating @awful.systems

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15

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64

Joined

2 yr. ago

What tipped you off? The phrase "unholy union"?

Anyways the occultism stuff is pretty common among "post-rats".

What's "that whole eudaimonia thing from a while back"? (I'm familiar with the concept of eudaimonia in general, but I'm not sure what you're referring to)

Naming the Jude Law's character in Gattaca "Eugene" was not very subtle.

Since they brought up Kathy Forth I'd just like to remind everyone within a few weeks of Kathy's death it was revealed that they had in fact known about the accusations against Brent Dill.

And yet the market is said to be "erring" and to have "irrationality" when it disagrees with rationalist ideas. Funny how that works.

Looking forward to LW articles with titles like "Ashkenazification via engineered viruses as a solution for African poverty: here's why it might work"

the cell’s ribosomes will transcribe mRNA into a protein. It’s a little bit like an executable file for biology.

Also, because mRNA basically has root level access to your cells, your body doesn’t just shuttle it around and deliver it like the postal service. That would be a major security hazard.

I am not saying plieotropy doesn't exist. I'm saying it's not as big of a deal as most people in the field assume it is.

Genes determine a brain's architectural prior just as a small amount of python code determines an ANN's architectural prior, but the capabilities come only from scaling with compute and data (quantity and quality).

When you're entirely shameless about your Engineer's Disease

Yeah, that thought had occurred to me, which is why I want to expose as much of it as I can find.

I intensely dislike him. I'd say his views rhyme with those of the rationalists, so to speak, which is why I think it's noteworthy that even a guy like him is criticizing EA now.

Old news obviously, but I think it's worth documenting the organizations and dollar amounts

even Steven Pinker is coming out against EA now: https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/1732114240666743102

The so called "experts" say that spider silk is stronger than steel, but steel beams can hold up bridges while I can break a spider web with my little finger. Looks like the "experts" are wrong and spider silk isn't very strong after all - probably because it's made of proteins held together by weak van der Waals forces instead of covalent bonds.

His argument, as I understand it, is that he knew about the covalent bonds between proteins but didn't mention them because he was simplifying things for a lay audience, and that those covalent bonds don't matter because they aren't the "load bearing" elements in flesh.

There are two problems I see

1. His earlier statements suggest he actually had no knowledge of that whatsoever
2. I think his revised explanation is still wrong, because the extracellular matrix that holds cells together and connective tissue are composed largely of proteins that have these covalent crosslinks and rely on them for strength. When you tear a ligment it's not just van der waals and hydrogen bonds being broken, those alone would be far too weak.

I suppose when talking about science to a popular audience it can be hard not to make generalizations and oversimplifications and if it's done poorly that oversimplification can cross over into plain old inaccuracy (if I were to be charitable to Yud I would say that this is what happened here).

To wit: even the "K'nex connector with 4 ports" model of carbon doesn't really explain the bonding of aromatic molecules like benzene or carbon nanotubes; I've likewise seen people confidently make the generalization "noble gases don't react", apparently unaware of the existence of noble gas compounds.

Big Yud himself responded:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aCEAczDuRrZihaLNA/why-yudkowsky-is-wrong-about-covalently-bonded-equivalents?commentId=ea3XoopDbvdmF7JbA

edit: there's lesswrong thread too: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8viKzSrYhb6EFk6wg/why-yudkowsky-is-wrong-about-covalently-bonded-equivalents

evidently I need to pay more attention to the non-sneerclub sections of this site.

He's been doing interviews on podcasts. The NYT also recently listed "internet philosopher" Eliezer Yudkowsky as one of the key figures of the modern artificial intelligence movement.

Sadly he did not wear a fedora in his official NYT picture

Thank you, that link is exactly what I was looking for (and also sated my curiosity about how Yudkowsky got involved with Bostrom and Hanson, I had heard they met on the extropian listserv but I had never seen any proof).

It's like when he wore a fedora and started talking about 4chan greentexts in his first major interview. He just cannot help himself.

P.S. The New York Times recently listed "internet philosopher" Eliezer Yudkowsky as one of the of the major figures in the modern AI movement, this is the picture they chose to use.

update: Verdon is now accusing another AI researcher of exposing him: https://twitter.com/GillVerd/status/1730796306535514472

I still find it amusing that Siskind complained about being "doxxed" when he used his real first and middle name.