Spyke

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22 replies

The cosmic-level irony here is that what they need now is lobbyists, the normiest of professions, yet their epistemic narcissism will probably prevent them from having the countenance necessary to recruit them.

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awful.systems

how do we get people to take our concerns about being paperclipped by the acausalrobotgod seriously?

If people have wrong beliefs or don't take things seriously that should be taken seriously (e.g. space property rights), just tell them. Reasonable people update on reasonable arguments.

Space property rights.

x-risk-pill

...

At least this article exposes quite well how the EA stuff about animal welfare is used as a front/greenwashing(ish) sort of thing.

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things that should be taken seriously (e.g. space property rights)

I don't know man, I think there are bigger fish to fry then who owns what in outer space

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Space property rights.

dammit I'm gonna get my money back out of these SpaceX IPO shares no matter what it takes

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awful.systems

There's the kind of regular who's been thinking seriously about AI safety and alignment since pre-2022, who have passing to intimate familiarity with the funding ecosystem, the Sequences, and various conferences that happen at Lighthaven. Let's call them rationalists.

... Let's not, because a bunch of us here fit all those descriptions, yet are clearly not "rationalists". The way that they use that term makes it synonymous with Orthodox ("right practices/thinking").

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The way that they use that term makes it synonymous with Orthodox (“right practices/thinking”).

I mean objectivism was already taken so...

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awful.systems

At the local AI safety co-working space

ok this is gonna be a doozy

Plenty of things professionals consider serious AI work (bias, misinformation, labor displacement, near-term harms) are donkey sanctuaries to at least some parts of the rationalist funding ecosystem, and perhaps it would be useful to make that common knowledge, but that legibility will come at the cost of resentment.

for context, "donkey farms" is shorthand for wooly-headed small-scale thinking, not Rationalist

I'm squarely in the rationalist camp, which means that when I see a problem my default response is to write a post and publish it publicly.

so how has that been working out for you so far "jenn"?

anyway my prediction is that there's gonna be a ton of money donated to a bunch of dodgy orgs, some people will profit handsomely, and in about 4 years it will all have blown over and no-one will mention it ever again

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for context, “donkey farms” is shorthand for wooly-headed small-scale thinking, not Rationalist

Ah, a version of the YCombinator pejorative "lifestyle business" tailored for the nonprofit sector. How droll.

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This article has an astonishing amount of almost-self-awareness, where only one vital step is missing in order to answer all their questions.

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awful.systems

I'm getting the urge to give some cash to a donkey sanctuary. Does anyone know a good one

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maolreply
awful.systems

I have now clicked around some donkey sanctuary websites and am starting to feel emotional. I am sure this is what rationalists are afraid of but God the donkeys....

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the donkey people may not have picked their cause because it was the most rational, but that doesn't seem to have stopped them from coming up with good ideas. it's almost as if people can be more effective when they're working for causes they're emotionally connected to....

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awful.systems

Top comment:

The responsibility probably rests on the rationalists here. People become professionals all the time (and indeed, maximizing impact often requires being a professional), but well under 1% of the population has the personality to ever become a rationalist.

Only 144,000 people will go to heaven!

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awful.systems

I'm not necessarily an animal lib person, but I think an animal rights/animal liberation/ethical vegan framework for looking after and respecting animals is probably better than an EA one. If only because they're more experienced in creating social change. Apparently only about 1 to 3% of Americans are vegans. So they have the numbers over the EAs, and they could probably beat them in a fight too.

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@maol I’ve seen it said (and now can’t find the link for reference) that whether or not the multiple on fish “utility” relative to human “utility” is small, a strict policy of fish maximalism adopted in 1900 would have produced better environmental outcomes for humanity than the course history actually did take. So, score that one for the vegans.

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slrpnk.net

What a stupid cult. Someone needs to pull the plug. The poor brainfucked computer wrecks need to go outside, and pet a donkey sometimes.

Seems like there are two types of people.

Those who enjoy holding conferences about the best way of shoveling donkey shit (plus points if they somehow are permitted to come up with global rules for handling donkey shit from the arctic to the equator and from the sea side to the mountain) and allocate funding for buying fancy AI powered shovels.

And those who shovel donkey shit.

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geriksonreply
awful.systems

of note is that you can without loss of generality replace "donkey sanctuary" with "dog/cat/ sanctuary", but I guess donkeys are both rarer, more ridiculous, and probably more Democrat than other pets.

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Replace any 'making the world a better place now' with 'talking a lot about making the world a better place some time in the future with my fellow cultists in our secret cult language'. These people make me feel exactly like fork scratching on blackboard.

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rationalist tries to get head around dealing with actual professionals in a professional context. Also, fuck them donkeys. | Spyke