I agree with your main premise, but a nitpick:
For a long time, people considered the Turing Test the gold standard for AI. Later, better benchmarks were developed, but for most laypeople with a passing familiarity with AI, the Turing Test meant something.
I'm not really sure that's true. The Turing Test has been passed in some form or another since 1966, with ELIZA, and I also remember various chat bots on AOL instant messenger doing the same back in the early 2000s. I think that people realized quickly that the Turing test is just a novelty, something thought up by Turing in the early days of computer science that seemed relevant but was quickly proven not to be, and that various technologies could beat it.
haroldbkny
6d ago
I've spent the last 15 years telling leftists who want to "tear down the system" how much that's a terrible idea, because when the system is torn down, tens of thousands of people die. I think there was some SSC post about this but I can't find it. I think it's beneficial to remember that tearing down the system is bad when the right wants to do it, just as when the left wants to do it. Now, defining what constitutes tearing down the system vs cleaning house and getting rid of waste and cruft may be the next place this argument would go, and I don't know any really good answers for that.
I really don't know if what Trump and Musk are doing is good or right, and I'm far from Trump's ardent defender and fan, but I also don't think it's that ridiculous what they're doing. They're using the big tech playbook, which is what Musk is used to. Slash budgets, break stuff, and the stuff that's really needed will become apparent as a result. It's what people who want to actually make change and make their companies better will do, not what people who want to preserve the status quo at any cost. (Read: it's what actual businesses do, not governments, because businesses care about cutting out waste, and governments don't really).
Maybe it's completely the wrong tactic to take. Maybe that playbook should never be employed for government because the programs are too important to have even a temporary gap. I don't know what the right answer is. But it's certainly interesting that they're trying something so unique. Where every other politician has claimed to want to make changes and failed to do so, this strategy might succeed, because it's never been tried before in government.
haroldbkny
8d ago
People have roughly alluded to related concepts, but I'm surprised no one explicitly mentioned the Chinese Robber Fallacy. That's what I think it is.
Edit: I see someone posted that 30 minutes ago, between when I loaded the thread and commented.
haroldbkny
19d ago
One thing that really irritates me and makes me have less regard for economics as a study is that no one can agree on the cause of the great depression. Some people say FDR saved us, some people say he made it worse and was the real reason it went on so long. There are so many theories that completely contradict each other. If economists can't figure that out, I have no faith in their ability to make predictions in our time.
haroldbkny
21d ago
Libs did try to resist Trump after his first election, believing he was illegitimate, didn't win the popular vote, needed tk be impeached over Russia, Stormy Daniels, etc.
It is refreshing that I no longer hear this stuff anymore. Leftists have now accepted that Trump won legitimately for his second term, and no one seems to be doubting that he is the rightful president. Instead it's a lot of "I can't believe people voted for this". But I consider that a lot better then the constant refusal that he is the rightful president, because all of the investigations and doubts really did prevent Trump from fully having the power last time. It was one witch hunt after another, causing everyone left of Jeb Bush to really internalize that it's a virtue to resist Trump on every level. I think the lack of question to his legitimacy this time will make things different this time around, for what it's worth.
haroldbkny
21d ago
Yeah, I guess it was in his original post. I was thinking of the motte and bailey more being argument-based, for example “reality is socially constructed” or "God is just another name for the beauty and order in the Universe", and less about identifying with an ideology directly.
haroldbkny
22d ago
This is a small question, not a huge discussion topic.
Is there a term for groups or factions hiding behind their name as a shield, as opposed to what their group actually does? As an example, feminists will say that all women should be in favor of feminism, because feminism just means "supporting women's choices" or something benign. But in actuality, feminism really means supporting specific women in specific ways - many women don't like abortion advocacy, sexual liberation, and all of the things that actually goes along with feminism. I used to joke that I am a "goodist", which is in support of things that are good. And when people donate to goodism, we'd use it to fund very specific libertarian or anti feminist causes, or something.
I remember thinking about this concept back in my anti-sjw heyday of 2014 a lot, but I can't remember if there is a term for it. This is related to, but not entirely described by "motte and bailey", such that I think it should have it's own name, if it doesn't.
This is coming up for me now, because I'm seeing people post things like a meme that says "do you realize how insane it is to publicly announce that you don't want diversity, equity, and inclusion?" in response to Trump
haroldbkny
23d ago
Quite frankly, it seems to be such low hanging fruit, I'm really surprised I never saw anyone saying this about Trump, Bush, Cheney, Romney or any other undesirable before now.
haroldbkny
25d ago
I don't strictly mean this in particular was a bluff. But it's all a part of these types of big business tactics.
Would he try this on other more dangerous countries? I don't really know, but it is worrisome. He went further with North Korea than most others have, but that was probably overall a win. Still though, it's a much bigger risk than most presidents would be willing to take.
There's purely one reason why I don't take societal collapse seriously. People have been saying society's about to collapse for my entire life, I cannot think of a single time in my life when people weren't saying that, and it never happened. And quite frankly, I got sick of worry about that sort of thing about 15 years ago. That's not to say it can't happen, but I've basically been chicken little'd out of the game.
haroldbkny
25d ago
One thing here might be whether carpenter and receptionists' lifestyles were borne out of them actually wanting to live that way, or rather borne out of necessity. If you get knocked up at 17 that leads into a life where you have a kid, and more come due to the first one effectively cutting off other choices in your life. And you don't have any choice of how to raise them, you basically have to do it the way you described them doing it. But is she as happy as she'd be be if she didn't get pregnant and lead that life out of necessity? And even if she is happy, would she choose those choices again, if she had the choice? It sounds like a tough life.
haroldbkny
25d ago
This is really interesting. I'm not pro-Trump and I'm not anti-Trump, but I am anti-anti-Trump. But I will say that this sort of thing unnerves me a little bit.
Trump is clearly used to wheelin' n' dealin' big business, callin' the shots, callin' the bluffs, making bluffs, making quick decisions based on gut instinct and an innate knowledge of human behavior and (company) politics. People just aren't used to this in the POTUS. For most politicians, everything needs to be carefully carefully considered, because the cost of a mistake could be not just that quarterly profits are down, but rather global catastrophe.
I admire that Trump is willing to try this out for the US, and maybe it's what we need in some ways to get us to prosperity, but I also fear this and the consequences of what happens when a nation who's more dangerous calls his bluffs and his tactics. He could be doing the right thing by trying these tactics, or it could be sheer insanity and the result of putting someone in a position they're not really the right person for. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.
haroldbkny
30d ago
I'm guessing you're being sarcastic, but truly, I have had so many experiences where I go to meet people on some conservative or libertarian meetup, and I'm excited to meet them, but then I find they're just extremely confrontational mindless drones who will jump on board any conspiracy theory, parrot anything they heard no matter how little sense it makes or how likely it is, or champion anyone who likewise wants to own the libs. Whatever it takes to convince themselves just a little more that leftists totally suck. That's not the sort of person I want to be or care to be around anymore.
haroldbkny
30d ago
That's fair. But I don't personally think that's the case. Most anti-leftists I have known have no scruples or even much higher level thought other than an extreme hatred of the left, and an arguments-as-soldiers kind of approach. For whenever reason, I've become different from that over time (and I believe many people in the motte, and anti-leftists in the rationalist community as well are more like me than other anti-leftists). I am anti leftist because I care about the truth, not in spite of the truth. It's just hard to meet other anti-leftists like that. Rationalists are rare to meet (where I am), anti-leftists are rare to meet, anti-leftist rationalists are really rare to meet.
haroldbkny
30d ago
Thanks, you too.
It took me a few minutes to put together "MDS". It is another insidious and rapidly growing variant that may overtake and outlive the initial TDS strain.
haroldbkny
30d ago
Some of them. Some of them I haven't told, some may have forgotten, some may have assumed that I've moved back (and I have moved back to some degree, but probably not as much as they think), one accepts and understands our differences, and some maybe just don't care to bring it up with me.
haroldbkny
30d ago
Yes, that's my assessment based on my company. It's a big company, but I know that at least one other big company totally differs from mine in how hiring is done (it's more central, less team-owned). I don't know which is closer to the norm for others companies.
Despite all of my company's flaws, I've always been proud of the fact that I really don't know any diversity hires. The team owned and data driven process to assess candidate skills have been very effective at keeping DEI's influence on hiring almost non-existent.
haroldbkny
30d ago
Are these people potential Trump voters? Will they ever be allies? If not, then who cares?
Well, I mean I'm sure you and I have different values and end goals. Suffice it to say, whether someone is a Trump supporter is not what I care about in my life. I'd say that even filtering people on that isn't even an option for me. If I did try to break ties with every person I know who is a TDS leftist... I'm pretty sure I'd have almost no one left in my life.
I've made the friends I've made and have the family I was born with and for whatever reason, they almost universally think differently from me regarding politics. I've tried, but failed to make new friends. I've found that when I try to specifically find local people who are anti leftist like me, they end up going too far in the other direction, and get annoyingly complainy with lack of adherence to truth, nuance, and values I like (e.g. they've often been strong followers of Ben Shapiro and others I deem to be grifting pundits).
At some point, I've had to make peace with this to avoid driving myself crazy, and just move on with my life, with the people I organically have found to be my community, while just praying people don't talk about politics too much. So the stuff I hate the most, from either side, is the stuff that will cause people to start interjecting their political opinions into my everyday life.
haroldbkny
30d ago
Replying to @falling-star too
Well, I can say that's not the way it works in my company, which may not be quite the norm. In my company, individual teams drive the hiring process, including finding candidates. Recruitment does a call, but it's mostly to prep candidates in what comes next. If they narrowed out a candidate during an intense hiring period for reasons other then serious flags, there would be hell to pay. Managers have a difficult enough time getting candidates through the hiring pipeline as is.
Fifth (or kind of, since it's related to both 2 and 4), this is going to really rile up the other side, and for nothing. This will convince everyone that Trump's next step is to do <insert batshit thing people somehow think Trump will do> and that this is the chance he's been waiting for to tear down the world and rebuild it in his own image. I think I'm never gonna hear the end of this one from the people I know.
haroldbkny
30d ago
HR doesn't make hiring decisions, do they? At least at my (tech) company, they, at best, facilitate hiring. Hiring is determined by the engineers and managers.
haroldbkny
1mo ago
I agree with you on all of that, but I also know that cops are crazy when it comes to ensuring people who threaten cops are put away. If there were people in J6 trying to harm cops at all, that could sway some of those police-loyal folks
haroldbkny
1mo ago
One angle I haven't seen anyone here bring up yet: someone from the ACX open thread brought up this question (granted in a snarky, annoying way) of whether this would hurt Trump's cred with the "Back the Blue" crowd. This is interesting. I don't expect it will, but I don't know why. At a high level, you'd think there's be a natural separation between populists, and people who enforce state-law, but I find at least where I am that police and their supporters are the most intense Trump supporters there are.
So, will the more avid police-supporters think this is some type of betrayal? If not, then I'm curious to know why.
I don't think it's conclusive that nothing has passed the test before, because I don't think the test is necessarily set in stone. There are variations, and I think it's been romanticized enough that people have moved the goalposts for the test as we progress. I mean some people could be fooled while others are not. Eugene Goostman is another one from 2014 that is said to have passed the test.
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