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0 pointsthrow056789311y ago0 comments

I didn't claim Gwern was a wordcel. He's clearly not. Dwarkesh, yes.

I didn't claim Yudkowsky was an EA. He's not. He's a rationalist who originated many thoughts about AI doom, which have influenced EAs.

Look, Gwern and Dwarkesh and Yud are all AI doomers, which is where the rationalists and the EAs overlap. Gwern is all over LessWrong, which kind of springs out of the rationalist community and has all sorts of EAs there now. But of course, the first rule of EA is the first rule of Fight Club. That's why Dario consistently denies he's an EA, even though his chief of staff was formerly running Sam Bankman-Fried's philanthropic grants.

The weird thing in these conversations between guys like Dwarkesh and Gwern is how much they wallow in the masochism of imagining a world taken over by AGI. Yud has a similar attraction to pain, but he channels it into his silly BDSM novels.

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Lords-Answer-Eliezer-Yudkowsky-e...

If that's how they wan't to spend their time, fine. Let's all just recognize it's an acquired taste, a self-indulgence, and the furthest thing from a rational act.

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Vecr1y ago

I didn't know he wrote novels. Is there a list somewhere? I know he wrote an "autobiography" (before he did anything) and his various fan fictions (including the infamous one), but I thought everything else was either compendiums of his writings edited by others or books written by other people about him.

Vecr1y ago

I still don't have a list, but are you sure that's not an affectation to better mimic a combination of Atlas Shrugged and a Japanese light novel?

throw05678931OP1y ago

If affectation requires insincerity, I actually don't think Yud is insincere, at least not about his core beliefs. Do I believe it's a poorly wrought novel of ideas that fails to achieve a respectable aesthetic end? Yes. There are many ways to craft a novel of ideas and not all of them involve inflicting pain on scantily clad heroines. These are choices Yud made for the book, which coincidentally echo non-mainstream choices he has made for his lifestyle over the years.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00J6XXP9K/allbooks

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0 pointsthrow056789311y ago0 comments

I didn't claim Gwern was a wordcel. He's clearly not. Dwarkesh, yes.

I didn't claim Yudkowsky was an EA. He's not. He's a rationalist who originated many thoughts about AI doom, which have influenced EAs.

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Lords-Answer-Eliezer-Yudkowsky-e...

If that's how they wan't to spend their time, fine. Let's all just recognize it's an acquired taste, a self-indulgence, and the furthest thing from a rational act.

0 comments

Vecr1y ago

I still don't have a list, but are you sure that's not an affectation to better mimic a combination of Atlas Shrugged and a Japanese light novel?

throw05678931OP1y ago

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00J6XXP9K/allbooks

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse