site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

1. The problem of handling many wagers virtually goes away once you accept one: the infinites involved in pursuing that one more or less perfectly are free to outweigh the others. It's actually pretty simple to make a decision theory that accepts it. Including hyperreals, and then doing the usual shut-up-and-multiply, works. LessWrong has written at length because they have no good way to reject the wager—I don't know that there's any real consistent way to do so—and so they just try to reject it while changing nothing else, which is just inconsistent. At least, so far as I have seen; I haven't looked in a while. (Especially funny in light of the EA shift somewhat in favor of longtermism: you know what else cares a lot about things with low chances of effective changes but extremely high rewards? This, but more.)

5. Doesn't it lead into them?

6. Fair enough. I mean, I do think you should pick, but if you think hallucinogens are more likely, then that would be the right move.

7.1. Then judge accordingly. In any case, if they're large because they're more powerful, wouldn't the more powerful be more likely to win in whatever cosmic battles we're talking about? Maybe you should worried that they might be evil forces, but if they're going to win, that doesn't sound good for anyone, not just their devotees.

7.2. Maybe that's how a reasonable god would act, and we shouldn't necessarily expect that, but we should make the best guess we can, and I don't exactly have a better one to offer.

8. Fair enough. Nirvana is cessation from suffering through infinite lives, right? Well, if those lives are finite in suffering each, and there are an ℵ0 number of lives to live through, well, there are larger infinities that could be promised by the other religions. (Yes, I didn't want to mention this messiness before, but there's no reason it wouldn't be present. It's unclear how they relate to each other, but most religions do not put an upper bound on how good their benefit/how harmful their cost, unlike what I just characterized nirvana as.)

9. Because large religions are more likely, assuming 7 is right. Combine that with prohibitions in said large religions on worshipping other gods, and so you shouldn't seek out more. (I gave Judaism a pass on that, because there are at least arguments to be made that Abrahamic religions worship the same God.)

10. Sure, this point is currently weak.

Edit: This doesn't matter, but I'm not currently convinced that by billions you've reached the point that the increase in benefit outweighs the decrease in probability enough to make it worth it. But at some point that does start happening, so, as I said, this point doesn't matter.