Perhaps because I like saying overrated/underrated.
But also because overrated/underrated is a quick way to provide information. "Forecasting is underrated by the population at large" is much easier to think of than "forecasting is probably rated 4/10 by the population at large and should be rated 6/10"
Over/underrated requires about 3 mental queries, "Is it better or worse than my ingroup thinks" "Is it better or worse than my ingroup thinks?" "Am I gonna have to be clear about what I mean?"
Scoring the current and desired status of something requires about 20 queries "Is 4 fair?" "Is 5 fair" "What axis am I rating on?" "Popularity?" "If I score it a 4 will people think I'm crazy?"...
Like in some sense your right that % forecasts are more useful than "More likely/less likely" and sizes are better than "bigger smaller" but when dealing with intangibles like status I think it's pretty costly to calculate some status number, so I do the cheaper thing.
Also would you prefer people used over/underrated less or would you prefer the people who use over/underrated spoke less? Because I would guess that some chunk of those 50ish karma are from people who don't like the vibe rather than some epistemic thing. And if that's the case, I think we should have a different discussion.
I guess I think that might come from a frustration around jargon or rationalists in general. And I'm pretty happy to try and broaden my answer from over/underrated - just as I would if someone asked me how big a star was and I said "bigger than an elephant". But it's worth noting it's a bandwidth thing and often used because giving exact sizes in status is hard. Perhaps we shouldn't have numbers and words for it, but we don't.
Sure though I feel like you have generally been weakly pro SBF in the meantime. And doesn't it cause some question of judgement if it took you 3+ years to come to the same conclusion that most people reached in 7 days?
But there are limits to the degree of acceptable antagonism against public opinion, and a willingness to send costly signals against public opinion for relatively moderate organization gain is not to the credit of Manifold.
Isn't this 'just having principles'? Like isn't this what principles are? To take costly stands which are not pragmatic? I don't really take a view on hiring Caroline (except to say that funders should vote with their feet) but I like organisations being run according to taste if they aren't hugely powerful. And Manifund isn't hugely powerful, so Austin is being principled. And I guess I tend to like that, even if I disagree with the principles.
I do know this, but I think if we are going to use talking points we should get to the bottom of them. So I wonder if "repeatedly platforming racists is accurate".
Hanania has disavowed previously racist positions. I would agree in 2023, hence I spent a lot of work pushing against him being a speaker.
Anomaly is voluntary eugenicist. Not clear to me he is racist as that word is typically used. Does he advocate for animus towards people on the basis of race?
Chau plausibly is. I don't particularly enjoy being the racism police, but I dislike Chau enough that I can't be bothered to defend him
Khan, Hsu, I can't find anything racist. Hsu is a voluntary eugenicist, I think.
I am not going to deal with unofficial afterparties.
I don't love how Cremiux talks, but has he published anything racist? Looks like another volunatry eugencist to me. Mother Jones claims he has a racist reddit account, he claims not.
So is "repeatedly platforming racists" accurate? I tend to think no.
To me this looks more "genetic differences between races" and "parents should be able to genetically select their children". I think that's pretty meaningfully different to racism and if you want to make Manifest the racism conference you can try but personally I like there being a line between the two. I prefer for people to be able to discuss genetics, but not advocate for animus or lazy thinking about races, genders, etc. Hence I worked hard (and lost friends) pushing for Hanania not to be a speaker in 2023.
I am a bit sensitive about this, but I think it's such a misplay from people close to EA to act as if any non-orthodox view on eugenics/crime/immigration is identical to racism. Personally, I think it's not helpful for seeing the world as it is and makes it harder to push back actual racial abuse in spaces I care about. I think that this view has largely caused the right to act as if racism isn't (and perhaps never was) real. And I think that's probably bad.
I know we like to launder this point here, but is the underlying point accurate? Hanania did not, to my recollection, speak at Manifest and which racists have later been platformed?
This talking point annoys me because it usually bottoms out at a few anecdotes or that bad guardian article. Is that what "repeatedly platforming racists" implies?
For those that may not know this, I was in conflict with Austin over the Hanania thing, probably one of the most in conflict, and I pushed pretty hard on Manifold to for him not to be a speaker, and wrote a blog about it at the time. I spent quite a lot of social capital on it.
Two points:
I agree that Hanania's output has improved a lot and that you are largely vindicated in my eyes here
I think Hanania is pretty open about doing whatever it takes to get views and subscribers. He has improved, but I don't know how to engage with someone who seems so self-evidently pragmatic in their public positioning. It troubles me.
Naaah come on. You could always say this had he done anything less than respond to all 9. He responded to what he thought was a high priority, is his response good, or bad?
Interesting take. I don't like it.
Perhaps because I like saying overrated/underrated.
But also because overrated/underrated is a quick way to provide information. "Forecasting is underrated by the population at large" is much easier to think of than "forecasting is probably rated 4/10 by the population at large and should be rated 6/10"
Over/underrated requires about 3 mental queries, "Is it better or worse than my ingroup thinks" "Is it better or worse than my ingroup thinks?" "Am I gonna have to be clear about what I mean?"
Scoring the current and desired status of something requires about 20 queries "Is 4 fair?" "Is 5 fair" "What axis am I rating on?" "Popularity?" "If I score it a 4 will people think I'm crazy?"...
Like in some sense your right that % forecasts are more useful than "More likely/less likely" and sizes are better than "bigger smaller" but when dealing with intangibles like status I think it's pretty costly to calculate some status number, so I do the cheaper thing.
Also would you prefer people used over/underrated less or would you prefer the people who use over/underrated spoke less? Because I would guess that some chunk of those 50ish karma are from people who don't like the vibe rather than some epistemic thing. And if that's the case, I think we should have a different discussion.
I guess I think that might come from a frustration around jargon or rationalists in general. And I'm pretty happy to try and broaden my answer from over/underrated - just as I would if someone asked me how big a star was and I said "bigger than an elephant". But it's worth noting it's a bandwidth thing and often used because giving exact sizes in status is hard. Perhaps we shouldn't have numbers and words for it, but we don't.
Sure though I feel like you have generally been weakly pro SBF in the meantime. And doesn't it cause some question of judgement if it took you 3+ years to come to the same conclusion that most people reached in 7 days?
Other comments aside, I kind of like long form, easy to follow discussions posted in the appropriate community location, so thanks David!
Isn't this 'just having principles'? Like isn't this what principles are? To take costly stands which are not pragmatic? I don't really take a view on hiring Caroline (except to say that funders should vote with their feet) but I like organisations being run according to taste if they aren't hugely powerful. And Manifund isn't hugely powerful, so Austin is being principled. And I guess I tend to like that, even if I disagree with the principles.
I do know this, but I think if we are going to use talking points we should get to the bottom of them. So I wonder if "repeatedly platforming racists is accurate".
So is "repeatedly platforming racists" accurate? I tend to think no.
To me this looks more "genetic differences between races" and "parents should be able to genetically select their children". I think that's pretty meaningfully different to racism and if you want to make Manifest the racism conference you can try but personally I like there being a line between the two. I prefer for people to be able to discuss genetics, but not advocate for animus or lazy thinking about races, genders, etc. Hence I worked hard (and lost friends) pushing for Hanania not to be a speaker in 2023.
I am a bit sensitive about this, but I think it's such a misplay from people close to EA to act as if any non-orthodox view on eugenics/crime/immigration is identical to racism. Personally, I think it's not helpful for seeing the world as it is and makes it harder to push back actual racial abuse in spaces I care about. I think that this view has largely caused the right to act as if racism isn't (and perhaps never was) real. And I think that's probably bad.
I know we like to launder this point here, but is the underlying point accurate? Hanania did not, to my recollection, speak at Manifest and which racists have later been platformed?
This talking point annoys me because it usually bottoms out at a few anecdotes or that bad guardian article. Is that what "repeatedly platforming racists" implies?
For those that may not know this, I was in conflict with Austin over the Hanania thing, probably one of the most in conflict, and I pushed pretty hard on Manifold to for him not to be a speaker, and wrote a blog about it at the time. I spent quite a lot of social capital on it.
Two points:
Naaah come on. You could always say this had he done anything less than respond to all 9. He responded to what he thought was a high priority, is his response good, or bad?
Glad to hear it. I am curious if that is common here, or not (though I guess you can't answer that).
Do you mean good to think about PR in general or or engage on forum posts about it?