Eliezer's linked article "Well-kept Gardens Die By Pacifism" confuses the words "pacifist" and "passive." This unfortunate choice of words reflects a common misunderstanding of what a pacifist is. Pacifists are not passive; we are politically active citizens who are robustly involved in pursuing nonviolent resolutions of conflicts. Active, active, active.

These two are perfect for each other.

For someone who worships "Power" more or less for its own sake, Robert certainly comes across less a Machiavellian Superman than a simpering celebrity sycophant.

Quoting T.G.G.P: Speaking of that, does anyone else find the concept of "concern trolling" annoying?

Good one!

Wonderment, What type of pacifist are you? Here's a range of possibilities: (1) You don't think any kind of physical force (e.g., killing, pushing, punching, cutting, etc.) or emotional force (e.g., hostility, anger, aggressiveness, etc.) is ever warranted, against people or animals.
(1a) Same as (1), but you don't include animals.
(2) You don't think any kind of physical force is ever warranted, against people or animals.
(2a) Same as (2), but you don't include animals.
(3) You don't think lethal force is ever warranted, against people or animals.
(3a) Same as (3), but you don't include animals.
(4) You don't think lethal force against someone's will is ever warranted (euthanasia, though, is permissible). Also, since animals can't consent, you think that lethal force is sometimes permissible against them (either to eat their flesh, or because they are suffering intensely).
(5) You think lethal force is permissible, but you don't think wars are ever permissible. I would guess that (5) and (4) are true of you, but (1)-(3) are not. Moreover, I guess that you're not a vegetarian. How'd I do?

(4) You don't think lethal force against someone's will is ever warranted (euthanasia, though, is permissible). Also, since animals can't consent, you think that lethal force is sometimes permissible against them (either to eat their flesh, or because they are suffering intensely).
(5) You think lethal force is permissible, but you don't think wars are ever permissible.

You did pretty well. I'm about a 4.5. I think lethal force should be avoided at almost all costs, and that the deliberate killing of another human being (without her consent) is always morally wrong. I do believe in having a police force, however, even if they sometimes kill (i.e., commit wrongs). So you might ask, "How could a police officer who kills someone as he is about to stab a child be engaged in a moral wrong?" I would answer that the degree of culpability of that officer is extremely low, and I would certainly be grateful to him for saving the child, but that we bear a collective responsibility for having created the kind of society in which adults stab children. (I am concerned about excessive use of force by some police officers, but that's a separate issue.) I also have some moral difficulty

Quoting yggdrasil: For someone who worships "Power" more or less for its own sake, Robert certainly comes across less a Machiavellian Superman than a simpering celebrity sycophant.

If you're talking about this diavlog only, please explain. I did not get that impression at all. Who was he sucking up to? And is Eliezer a celebrity? (No offense, EY.)

Yeah. Pacifism isn't even Pacisfism. ;^) But yes, Eliezer would have been better to title his post "Well-Kept Gardens Die By Passivism." (Where I'd prefer this made-up word to passivity for the wordplay and the hint of tension it provokes by suggesting pacifism.)

Quoting claymisher: These two are perfect for each other.

Agreed. This was enjoyable and in many places entertaining, and probably due at least in part to their chemistry. Also: that was FTW.

Quoting T.G.G.P: I looked up his bio on Wikipedia and didn't read anything about his time in Hollywood.

Which proves his claim that he never got any credit for all the work he did. ;^)

One of my favorite commenters, Hopefully Anonymous, draws the censorship-power connection here.

Thanks for that link. I don't buy at least one of HA's claims -- that a blogger not having a comments section is sufficient reason to think said blogger cannot be trusted with power. There are many reasons not to permit comments that have nothing to do with, say, a totalitarian mindset, most of them far more mundane; e.g., resource limitations. I'll also observe that of the three no-comments-allowed bloggers he gives, the one I'm familiar with regularly prints reader emails, and many of them are dissents. (Note that I am not saying I want Andrew Sullivan to be the boss of me; that is nikkibong's fantasy. ;^)) But, if I take the post to be partly tongue-in-cheek, and partly a plea for letting as many voices as possible have a shot, I'll go along with the general theme.

There are a few people Eliezer has deemed trolls that I don't recall having bad grammar. Caledonian/melendwyr, ...

If that's

Quoting bjkeefe: I agree with you 99%. But there does get to be a point where -- maybe just because you can't get everyone else to adopt the policy of Masterful Indifference -- that a troll can disrupt things to the point where it's good to take action.

Which reminds me of something that I thought of when Robert and Eliezer were discussing policing comments sections, and also recalls your link to HA's post. I think that there is nothing wrong, and indeed, often a lot to be gained, by a website being run as a benevolent dictatorship. I think the problem with trying to extend this discussion to other areas of human interaction is that the idea doesn't scale very well. Or, perhaps, it would be fine to run countries as benevolent dictatorships as long as there were many, many other countries a disgruntled citizen could move to, and the cost of moving was effectively zero.

I jumped to the last segment, the one about people avoiding to do things until they have to. Robert contribution to the conversation was intelligent and creative. Eliezer kept on responding with comments about death and baseball bats. Like what does that have to do with the subject matter of procrastination? My vote is that Eliezer is off the island and Robert makes another appearance with someone he knows who can speak to the subject matter at hand. My view on the avoidance of mental activitiy is the brain knows it can't concentrate on things for extended periods of time. But it can't apply pain to get us to stop running our mental engines at top speed. Instead it makes daydreaming and other idling activities pleasurable in a way. Not completely sure. I think the important question to ask is why is it difficult to concentrate on a specific subject for more than a short period of time.

About the alleged association between trolling and bad grammar:

Quoting bjkeefe: To the larger point, I think while there are exceptions ..., Eliezer's got a good rule of thumb, at least.

What about those of us who have English as a second language? Are we going to be accused of trolling? Huh?!

Quoting Ocean: About the alleged association between trolling and bad grammar:

What about those of us who have English as a second language? Are we going to be accused of trolling? Huh?!

No, at least not by me. I have the sense that I can tell the difference between someone who is using English as a second language and someone who is not even capable of using it as a first. You're not even in the running, by the way. Your English is better than average, and sometimes beautiful. Plus, just to take your joke annoyingly at face value, bad grammar is not by any means a perfect predictor of troll-like behavior. It's just that it does seem that trolls are more likely to display this characteristic than the average commenter.

Quoting bjkeefe: No, at least not by me. I have the sense that I can tell the difference between someone who is using English as a second language and someone who is not even capable of using it as a first.

De verdad?

You're not even in the running, by the way. Your English is better than average, and sometimes beautiful.

Me haces sonrojar!

Plus, just to take your joke annoyingly at face value, bad grammar is not by any means a perfect predictor of troll-like behavior. It's just that it does seem that trolls are more likely to display this characteristic than the average commenter.

Qué alivio!

Good diavlog! I truly enjoyed Robert's facial expression when Eliezer was talking about immortality and transhumanism. Eliezer asked Robert whether he would prefer power or happiness. To my amazement Robert answered power! I have a problem with the question itself. In the way it's formulated, it appears that both states are mutually exclusive, which, in my opinion, doesn't have to be the case. If they were, then one would argue that power is so bad that it can only lead to unhappiness. Or that happiness is such that power is incongruous with it. I can see that there may be arguments that support these statements but not in an absolute way. But, going back to Robert's answer, he explains his choice by saying that happiness can't be a permanent state and he goes on to define it as some state of constant joy and cheerfulness. I would argue that happiness doesn't imply a constant state but the predominance of a state of wellbeing. As long as we are applying the common definition for both states, I don't see them as mutually exclusive. It seems that somehow the question was formulated as having to choose between

Actually I was referring to his attitudes towards the rappers and other examples of "Power" that he uses for his books. Somehow the fact that someone has achieved power makes them, in Roberts mind, instantly worth worshiping, despite whatever unsavory characteristics come along with it. The whole attitude smacks of a very weak individual who romanticizes the achievement of power because he has never actually experienced it.

Quoting yggdrasil: Actually I was referring to his attitudes towards the rappers and other examples of "Power" that he uses for his books. Somehow the fact that someone has achieved power makes them, in Roberts mind, instantly worth worshiping, despite whatever unsavory characteristics come along with it. The whole attitude smacks of a very weak individual who romanticizes the achievement of power because he has never actually experienced it.

That's a lot of loaded language that doesn't seem descriptive of the guy I just watched speak for an hour.

Quoting Wonderment: I would answer that the degree of culpability of that officer is extremely low, and I would certainly be grateful to him for saving the child, but that we bear a collective responsibility for having created the kind of society in which adults stab children.

This stands out as something I disagree with and something which probably underpins much of your belief system.
It is possible that no society is capable of preventing such an act. It is possible that people are just born sociopathological, etc, without society being responsible, except that perhaps it didn't take steps to sterilize the mother or father.

Quoting badhatharry: This stands out as something I disagree with and something which probably underpins much of your belief system.
It is possible that no society is capable of preventing such an act. It is possible that people are just born sociopathological, etc, without society being responsible, except that perhaps it didn't take steps to sterilize the mother or father.

Certainly the murder of children has been a fact of life for longer than there have been societies. I think placing the blame for it on "the kind of society we have created" is a pretty questionable proposition.

Please elaborate, what exactly did you find admirable about Greene? The advocacy of intellectual theft? The reductionist view of Machiavellian ethics? His opinions that people with power should be "playful" with it. Would you accept Greene as a team leader at you workplace? I doubt you would. But despite being incredibly evil, Greene's philosophy is incredibly mundane. We all know people in our own workplace who follow these ethics (although perhaps slightly less temerity). The ranks of the middle management of this country are full of people with power fetishes, taking credit for other peoples work, and trying to derive pleasure out of whatever amount of power that has been able to connive out of their superiors. But these individuals rarely actually achieve anything real in life, and somehow rarely even rise above the ranks of middle management. I have had bosses like this, and no one who works under them is ever fooled by their power games.

Quoting yggdrasil: Please elaborate, what exactly did you find admirable about Greene? The advocacy of intellectual theft? The reductionist view of Machiavellian ethics? His opinions that people with power should be "playful" with it. Would you accept Greene as a team leader at you workplace? I doubt you would.

But despite being incredibly evil, Greene's philosophy is incredibly mundane. We all know people in our own workplace who follow these ethics (although perhaps slightly less temerity). The ranks of the middle management of this country are full of people with power fetishes, taking credit for other peoples work, and trying to derive pleasure out of whatever amount of power that has been able to connive out of their superiors. But these individuals rarely actually achieve anything real in life, and somehow rarely even rise above the ranks of middle management. I have had bosses like this, and no one who works under them is ever fooled by their power games.

You've extrapolated an awful lot from my simple observation. Nor do I recognize the diavlogger in your description here, any more than I did in your prior comment.

Please elaborate, what exactly did you find admirable about Greene? The advocacy of intellectual theft? The reductionist view of Machiavellian ethics? His opinions that people with power should be "playful" with it. Would you accept Greene as a team leader at you workplace? I doubt you would. But despite being incredibly evil, Greene's philosophy is incredibly mundane. We all know people in our own workplace who follow these ethics (although perhaps slightly less temerity). The ranks of the middle management of this country are full of people with power fetishes, taking credit for other peoples work, and trying to derive pleasure out of whatever amount of power that has been able to connive out of their superiors. But these individuals rarely actually achieve anything real in life, and somehow rarely even rise above the ranks of middle management. I have had bosses like this, and no one who works under them is ever fooled by their power games.

Quoting T.G.G.P: Robert's definition of "fearlessness" sounds distant enough from the common definition that he should have just called it "self-control" or something like that.

You're mistaking his definition of fearlessness for his mission. Not really your fault: he's purposely entangling them. Here's what he's about: just say no to drugs. Only, he's putting this injunction in terms that he thinks will appeal to young black men, i.e. 'you gotta be fearless to say no to drugs!' Marketing.

Robert Greene: "Human nature is not going to change". When Elezier brought up immortality, Greene brought up unintended consequences (one of my favorite themes). Also he doubted that, despite potential drug development or technology, we would be able to alter human nature in a controlled way. Elezier lost me on the baseball bat anaology (and basically the whole immortality fantasy). Until then....great interview!

Quoting Wonderment: You did pretty well. I'm about a 4.5.

I think lethal force should be avoided at almost all costs, and that the deliberate killing of another human being (without her consent) is always morally wrong. I do believe in having a police force, however, even if they sometimes kill (i.e., commit wrongs). So you might ask, "How could a police officer who kills someone as he is about to stab a child be engaged in a moral wrong?"

I would answer that the degree of culpability of that officer is extremely low, and I would certainly be grateful to him for saving the child, but that we bear a collective responsibility for having created the kind of society in which adults stab children. (I am concerned about excessive use of force by some police officers, but that's a separate issue.)

My own use of the terms "wrong" and "culpability" is interconnected. I think that if you do something wrong, then by definition you are culpable for it. So, to my ears, saying that "X performed a wrong, but he has little culpability for it" is like saying "X committed a minor wrong". On the other hand, I think "bads" are something that can be very bad, but for

Quoting yggdrasil: Please elaborate, what exactly did you find admirable about Greene? The advocacy of intellectual theft? The reductionist view of Machiavellian ethics? His opinions that people with power should be "playful" with it. Would you accept Greene as a team leader at you workplace? I doubt you would. .

I don't think he was lionizing these features of human nature. Merely pointing out that they do exist (for everyone...all of the time).
Although I haven't read him, I think he might be in the business of pointing out these features and then advising how to best use them.
I think he made it quite clear that he despises intellectual theft, especially when he talked about politicians using a team of experts to devise ways of saying things instead of standing on their own to lay out their ideas.

Quoting AemJeff: You've extrapolated an awful lot from my simple observation. Nor do I recognize the diavlogger in your description here, any more than I did in your prior comment.

Perhaps I can help. This sentence says it all "The reductionist view of Machiavellian ethics?" Anyone who talks about human nature and says that it won't change is a reductionist. Mention Machiavelli soon after and in some people's mind what you have is a brute without a conscience.

While agreeing for the most part to an earlier objection to the use of "'enlightenment thinking' as a pejorative" (Mobilizing to Save Civilization), Eliezer's is a radical form of 'enlightenment thinking' that turns rationality on its head. Anything can be engineered? A statement such as this normally sends one scurrying for the qualifiers that would keep it in the realm of rational thought. Something as overarching as 'limited to our physical understanding of the universe" would have at least excluded "human nature." But again, this was precisely the context for Eliezer's statement.

Quoting yggdrasil: Actually I was referring to his attitudes towards the rappers and other examples of "Power" that he uses for his books. Somehow the fact that someone has achieved power makes them, in Roberts mind, instantly worth worshiping, despite whatever unsavory characteristics come along with it. The whole attitude smacks of a very weak individual who romanticizes the achievement of power because he has never actually experienced it.

Thanks for your answer. Don't know what to tell you except I didn't hear things the way you did.

Quoting spandrel: Something as overarching as 'limited to our physical understanding of the universe" would have at least excluded "human nature."

I've read and reread this sentence and still don't understand it. Please advise.

Quoting AemJeff: Certainly the murder of children has been a fact of life for longer than there have been societies. I think placing the blame for it on "the kind of society we have created" is a pretty questionable proposition.

Well, we agree, then.

Quoting badhatharry: Well, we agree, then.

Sure enough - sometimes that's the case.

Reading excepts from his books it does not seem as though he is simply pointing out the darker side of human nature, rather he seems like he is advocating for it. For an objective view of human nature, see Pinker and other honest evolutionary biologists.

This stands out as something I disagree with and something which probably underpins much of your belief system.

Actually not. It's an outlier on the fringe of my belief system. What often happens with pacifism is that people concoct the most unlikely and remote hypothetical scenarios to "refute" the philosophy. I concocted this one myself to anticipate the usual approach. This never happens with warism, however. For example, if the warist says killing of innocents is wrong and then slaughters 1000 civilians in the most heinous way, we learn of new categories of exceptions to the rule (collateral damage, for example).

It is possible that no society is capable of preventing such an act. It is possible that people are just born sociopathological, etc, without society being responsible, except that perhaps it didn't take steps to sterilize the mother or father.

I think even most non-pacifists agree that sociopaths should not be exterminated. That is, in part, why most countries have abolished the death penalty. So there is some sense that lethal violence even against a sociopath is wrong. The difficulty comes in the moment of preventing violence to a third party. Again, I don't claim pacifism is a

What's wrong about it? Is it the deliberate killing of innocent, sentient life for a trivial purpose? Or is it the factory farming aspect? For example, if there were a peace-loving primitive society that happened to fish and hunt, would you think therein lay the seed for the development of violence?

I think there are many crimes committed against animals, some far more serious than others. The worst, of course, is gratuitous cruelty and torment. Factory farming is also wrong because of its treatment of animals (not to speak of its impact on the environment, which is enormously pernicious). So the lesser of the evils is free-range farming/ranching. The animals are still slaughtered, but they may have decent lives before slaughter. (In this respect, I'm also interested in locavore cultures that are emerging; if people eat only what's produced in their 100K radius, they are less likely to permit ugly slaughter practices or devote too much land and resources to meat production.) Also, relatively low on the scale of wrongs is fishing. The level of sentience of the animal matters (I don't have a guilty conscience about killing insects, for example.). But there are many high-order sentient beings

Quoting badhatharry: Mention Machiavelli soon after and in some people's mind what you have is a brute without a conscience.

Poor Niccolo, always getting the bum rap. Here is an interesting exception:
http://www.booknotes.org/Program/?ProgramID=1601

Yeah. Pacifism isn't even Pacisfism.

Ha! I corrected that, but it only corrects in the original, not in the replies. Now it's YOUR fault

Who invoked the Devil? What is your Score?

Quoting badhatharry: I've read and reread this sentence and still don't understand it. Please advise.

While admitting that human nature can change, I think the conversation too often confused "human nature" with "human behavior", which I think are different. I suspect that Robert was thinking the same when he attempted to argue that "human nature" does in fact change, but at a glacial pace. History is full of examples of the folly of attempting to re-engineer human nature to fit some preconceived notion of the ideal, normally through the attempt to maximize two or more 'desirable' but incompatible concepts that we hold to be representative of the 'good.' To Eliezer, this is simply a problem of engineering.

Quoting SkepticDoc: What is your Score?

73. Which I say without caring whether I win friends or influence people

Quoting graz: 73. Which I say without caring whether I win friends or influence people

You beat me - 62. I'm going to have to do something about that.

Quoting AemJeff: You beat me - 62. I'm going to have to do something about that.

At least you beat me. 55.

Quoting bjkeefe: At least you beat me. 55.

52. I'm more morally upright than all of you! Or...am I just LYING about how upright I am just to get ahead? Muah ha ha ha ha!

Nikki, We are monozygotic twins, separated at birth (even though I'm 80 years older than you)! I too got a 52 (or I too am lying). Of course, there are various ways to add up to 52, so we may be different after all.

Robert Green is interesting and I will certainly order a copy of his book. Meanwhile let us apply Green's thesis about happiness to some leading statesmen in American history. First, on the positive side: FDR, "the happy warrior," is a good illustration of the value of overcoming adversity. In his youth he was an exceedingly snobbish, disloyal, dissembling, self-centered personality -- and a shameless braggart to boot -- yet somehow, after polio, he managed to turn these vices into virtues (he never really escaped them) and became an extraordinary leader of men. For the before see Geoffrey Ward's First Class Temperament ; for the after see Frances Perkins's The Roosevelt I Knew The case of Lincoln is more ambiguous: He certainly overcame adversity in spades but seemed to achieve but a single extraordinarily happy moment in his life, which we can see in Gardener's famous last photograph taken shortly after the victory at Richmond. Of course Lincoln loved to laugh and tell jokes all his life, but like most stand-up comedians his laughter masked an underlying misery. Finally, Benjamin Franklin seems to be a counterexample: he was successful at everything he ever did in life and yet

50...

What do you think of just war theory? If a state in fact tied itself to just war theory, I think it would almost never go to war, although it would be a possibility. Do you classify just war theory as a species of warism, or of something else? Also, why do you call the alternative to your view warism? Your view isn't called peacism, after all. How about martialism?

50 for me too.

I am a low Mach- 49, have been as low as 37! This is another interesting quiz.

Quoting SkepticDoc: I am a low Mach- 49, have been as low as 37!

This is another interesting quiz.

37? When did you recover?

Quoting claymisher: 50 for me too.

Twins! Well, no, Clay! You know what I mean... When did you move to NJ?

I've become more Machiavellian the more I get engaged in BHTV Forum discussions...

Quoting SkepticDoc: I've become more Machiavellian the more I get engaged in BHTV Forum discussions...

Yeah, that can do it! Loss of Innocence.

What do you think of just war theory? If a state in fact tied itself to just war theory, I think it would almost never go to war, although it would be a possibility. Do you classify just war theory as a species of warism, or of something else?

Depends how strict your interpretation of just war theory would be. Of course, as it is, every country or non-state player like Al Qaeda, applies just war criteria to their actions. Al Qaeda believes that 9/11 was an act of Just War; Bush thought Iraq was a just war; Obama thinks Af-Pak is a just war. Historically, just war doctrine has failed miserably.

Also, why do you call the alternative to your view warism? Your view isn't called peacism, after all. How about martialism?

I just think people who believe in war, practice war and promote militarism should own it. The US is a war-based culture. We glorify war, wage war almost perpetually and spend most of our money on warfare. Thus, we are warists and our philosophy is warism. I like to frame pacifism vs. warism because it often highlights the problem. For example, Obama is currently engaged in his 5th recent "War Council." But only warists

Quoting Ocean: Twins! Well, no, Clay! You know what I mean...

When did you move to NJ?

Around May or so.

56, pretty unremarkable really.

First of all, I really appreciate the Eliezer Yudkovsky diavlogs, no matter what he's talking about. It's great fun to hear a really smart non-conventional person who can challenge some of my ideas. I'm sure the accusations of "faith" get old to transhumanists, but really, if they want to curb this they should stop sounding so much like a religious cult! Why do you think we will achieve immortality? Uh, look at the last million years, see this exponential graph... also... SUPER-INTELLIGENT MACHINES WILL DO IT FOR US! And within my lifetime too! I can't tell you when this stuff will happen or most especially I can't tell you how, but I can tell you for sure it's sooner than you think. (We're making _tons_ of progress on those intelligent machines, trust us on this.) Now donate money to charity and we'll freeze your head for the afterlife, and I promise you'll make out better than Ted Williams! That's right, your head will _not_ be used for batting practice. Personally, I've been making a bit of a descent into John Horgan-ism lately, and am becoming convinced that we're really nearing the top of a sigmoid curve, not an exponential one. I look around and see that all, or nearly all, significant technological change

Quoting WilliamP: I'm sure the accusations of "faith" get old to transhumanists, but really, if they want to curb this they should stop sounding so much like a religious cult!

A good observation, and extensively discussed in the Yudkowsky & Lanier diavlog.

Quoting WilliamP: Why do you think we will achieve immortality?

And I'd like to have seen a bit more discussion on its desirability. The flip side of Yudkowsky's idyllic vision of immortality is Dan Simmons' Bikura in his novel Hyperion. Even a percursory reflection on the topic raises illimitable points of legitimate concern.

Important point. How does he do it (in this case, dig up all the supporting anecdotes)? He works hard and just gets it done. It drives me nuts when people in a room stare at each other and say something is too hard to do when all it takes is two weeks of elbow grease.

Quoting WilliamP: Personally, I've been making a bit of a descent into John Horgan-ism lately, and am becoming convinced that we're really nearing the top of a sigmoid curve, not an exponential one. I look around and see that all, or nearly all, significant technological change lately has come from an unbelievable progression in computer hardware speed and miniaturization, and that that is nearing it's physical limits now. You may say my position indicates a failure of imagination, but I say your position indicates an unwarranted blind faith in the powers of knowable extrapolation.

I agree. FYI, the sigmoid curve: You might think "it's exponential! yay!!!!" Then around 1.3 the second derivative turns negative.

Quoting Wonderment: Depends how strict your interpretation of just war theory would be. Of course, as it is, every country or non-state player like Al Qaeda, applies just war criteria to their actions. Al Qaeda believes that 9/11 was an act of Just War; Bush thought Iraq was a just war; Obama thinks Af-Pak is a just war.

Historically, just war doctrine has failed miserably.

Of course, politicians like to say that the war they're undertaking is just; but simply believing that the war you're leading is just is not the same thing as advocating just war theory. According to just war theory, certain fairly well-defined criteria must be met before a war can legitimately be started, and certain fairly well-defined criteria continually, and perhaps even continuously, must be met for the war that was legitimately started to be legitimately waged. Now, these strictures haven't been as closely followed as they ideally should be, but of course the same thing can be said of pacifism; and you don't think pacifism is a failure.

I just think people who believe in war, practice war and promote militarism should own it. The US is a war-based culture. We glorify war, wage war almost

Quoting WilliamP: I've been making a bit of a descent into John Horgan-ism lately, and am becoming convinced that we're really nearing the top of a sigmoid curve, not an exponential one. I look around and see that all, or nearly all, significant technological change lately has come from an unbelievable progression in computer hardware

The decline in innovation is due to market forces. How much money can you make treating smallpox these days? Is there any appliance manufactured now that doesn't exhibit planned obsolescence? The market incentivizes a very slow rollout of marginally improved treatments for disease, rather than cures for disease. It incentivizes the production of appliances that need replacing every five years or so. You're right that computing seems to have different incentives. I think this may be because of video games. Outside of gaming, the masses don't really need much computing power. Thus, netbooks. If we want innovation, we have to replace market incentives with other ones--war on Mars or something (sorry, Wonderment).

Quoting WilliamP: Personally, I've been making a bit of a descent into John Horgan-ism lately, and am becoming convinced that we're really nearing the top of a sigmoid curve, not an exponential one.

So the reason you think this...

I look around and see that all, or nearly all, significant technological change lately has come from an unbelievable progression in computer hardware speed and miniaturization, and that that is nearing it's physical limits now.

Is this? If so, then yes, it is a failure of your imagination. I predict computers will continue to become faster, the only change will be that instead of progress just being some function of lithography improvements, it will instead come from things like finding better ways to distribute the clock,new substrates, etc. So instead of this nice pretty little upward curve being a proxy for hardware advancements, there will be 20 different graphs with all these ugly discontinuity's everywhere. Edit:
I will admit I am always skeptical of people prophesying radical advancements that at the same time never want to get into the nuts and bolts of why they are so excited. But who knows, maybe there is no clear way to explain it

Quoting spandrel: A good observation, and extensively discussed in the Yudkowsky & Lanier diavlog.

And I'd like to have seen a bit more discussion on its desirability. The flip side of Yudkowsky's idyllic vision of immortality is Dan Simmons' Bikura in his novel Hyperion. Even a percursory reflection on the topic raises illimitable points of legitimate concern.

I know for sure that when it comes to the issue of my own personal mortality, I'm pretty disinterested in somebody else's theoretical concerns. (I'm a fan of Simmons' novels btw.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7nb8LRKx2E Pretty good summary of 48 laws

According to just war theory, certain fairly well-defined criteria must be met before a war can legitimately be started, and certain fairly well-defined criteria continually, and perhaps even continuously, must be met for the war that was legitimately started to be legitimately waged.

I'd be in favor of almost anything that would decrease the likelihood of war occurring. So if tightening just war criteria makes going to war harder, I'll all for it.

Well, as a culture we certainly don't spend most of our money on war. But I'll let that pass.

Military spending (defense) was 21% of the budget for 2008. They also get about half of what is called "discretionary spending" and pull from other sources ("stimulus," supplementals) bringing the percentage up to "approximately 31-37% of budgeted expenditures and 35-42% of estimated tax revenues" (Congressional Budget Office numbers). This doesn't include Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, and interest paid on debt incurred in past wars. So..... let's not quibble about the %.

Are you sure that you don't advocate "warism" because "warist" sounds like someone who is in favor of wars, as opposed to someone who is not in favor of wars in general, but thinks there are certain

Quoting Wonderment: ...Military spending (defense) was 21% of the budget for 2008. They also get about half of what is called "discretionary spending" and pull from other sources ("stimulus," supplementals) bringing the percentage up to "approximately 31-37% of budgeted expenditures and 35-42% of estimated tax revenues" (Congressional Budget Office numbers). This doesn't include Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, and interest paid on debt incurred in past wars. So..... let's not quibble about the %.

Don't know where you get your figures, as you provide no link only some claim that it is CBO's from but here is the MONTHLY BUDGET REVIEW for Fiscal Year 2009 A Congressional Budget Office Analysis completed November 6, 2009. In it you will see that defense outlays are just around 18% (637 out of a total of 3522 billion).

In it you will see that defense outlays are just around 18% (637 out of a total of 3522 billion).

Guess you didn't read my post thoroughly, so I won't bother taking it as anything more than the usual monkey wrench thrown into the argument. You are the Forum's #1 expert at doing that. I will add, however, this interesting related chart: http://www.globalissues.org/article/...RestoftheWorld

Quoting AemJeff: I know for sure that when it comes to the issue of my own personal mortality, I'm pretty disinterested in somebody else's theoretical concerns. (I'm a fan of Simmons' novels btw.)

No, I said "legitimate", not "theoretical" :-) But fair enough; point taken.

No I read your post and probably the article that it came from. it is an opinion piece, with it's nice little pie charts of the actual CBO estimates and the polemics opinion of what the should be, since you obviously were too disingenuous to actually to link to it and then try to pass it off as CBO figures.

Quoting piscivorous: No I read your post and probably the article that it came from. it is an opinion piece ...

Yeah, Wonderment. Don't you know opinion pieces are only valid when they're preaching AGW denialism or insisting that Obama is secretly planning to form the New Hitler Youth?

I at least attribute my sources, weather you approve of them or not, instead of trying to pass their thoughts and effort as my own.

Quoting piscivorous: I at least attribute my sources, weather you approve of them or not, instead of trying to pass their thoughts and effort as my own.

That was unsupported calumny and definitely beneath you.

Perhaps this will look familiar.

Don't you know opinion pieces are only valid when they're preaching AGW denialism or insisting that Obama is secretly planning to form the New Hitler Youth?

There was no opinion piece. He made that up, or hallucinated. It is true, however, that Piscivorous pulls the same shit on me that he pulls on you (and everyone else). Gets really tedious after a while. I was having a decent exchange with Bobby when Piscivorous decided his usual sniper attack was appropriate. Big yawn. It comes on the heels of another rant he directed toward me on another thread. As my spiritual advisor JZ would say.... "

You gotta get (get), that(that), dirt off your shoulder
You gotta get (get), that(that), dirt off your shoulder
You gotta get (get), that(that), dirt off your shoulder
You gotta get (get), that(that), dirt off your shoulder

Quoting Wonderment: Military spending (defense) was 21% of the budget for 2008. They also get about half of what is called "discretionary spending" and pull from other sources ("stimulus," supplementals) bringing the percentage up to "approximately 31-37% of budgeted expenditures and 35-42% of estimated tax revenues" (Congressional Budget Office numbers). This doesn't include Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, and interest paid on debt incurred in past wars. So..... let's not quibble about the %.

I suppose this counts as quibbling, but remember what you wrote: "The US is a war-based culture. We glorify war, wage war almost perpetually and spend most of our money on warfare." I took "culture" to be antonymous with "US Federal budget". It's clear that the GDP isn't mostly spent on war. As for the US Federal budget, it's still not spent mostly on "war" (I don't take caring for old veterans to be count as spending on war).

Let's say you were an occassional bank robber who mostly believes in keeping a job and supporting his family by honest work. In thirty years of working life, you've only robbed 10 or 12 banks, about 1 every 3 years. You only resort to bank robbing when things get tough, like when you need a new car or your kid, your daughter gets

Quoting AemJeff: That's a lot of loaded language that doesn't seem descriptive of the guy I just watched speak for an hour.

i sort of agree with both of you. tying the book to 50 cent made me start the DV with Yggdrasil's point of view - this guy is undoubtedly a sycophantic schmuck! but i really liked him more and more as he presented his ideas. the 50 cent thing really does seems like a bad choice for someone with real ideas, but hey - he got his ideas out there one way or the other, so more power to him...

Quoting popcorn_karate: i sort of agree with both of you.

tying the book to 50 cent made me start the DV with Yggdrasil's point of view - this guy is undoubtedly a sycophantic schmuck! but i really liked him more and more as he presented his ideas.

the 50 cent thing really does seems like a bad choice for someone with real ideas, but hey - he got his ideas out there one way or the other, so more power to him...

My initial thought was "fifty-cent," wtf? After I heard his rationale, and listened to how he fit his ideas together, I was pretty impressed.

so are you lying or naive? ; ) more seriously, I think it is possible to realize that machiavelli is largely correct about human nature and power while still choose to live according to other principles because your morals will not condone taking advantage of those insights. 69 is my mach number. most people i know would never call me machiavellian. I often trust people and hope for the best - because i'm willing to take the positive or negative consequences of choosing to behave the way i want to see others behave. Its just that I am aware that this will often back fire on me in the short run, but in the long run i winnow out those from my life that i can't trust. anyway - i thought the test confused agreeing with the insights of M with acting on those insights. pk

Good job in deconstructing the bank robber analogy. Of course, it's just a rough illustration off the top of my head, so I wouldn't take it to the bank so to speak.

It's certainly true that there have been cultures that have celebrated war as an intrinsic good--the Nazis, for example, saw violence as a good because it brought people together, it was an occasion to exercise virtues, etc. That's quite a different attitude from seeing war as a necessary evil.

The lines blue a bit for me. The Nazis may have believed more fervently in war, but they sold it to the German people as a necessary evil. On the other hand, its' unlikely that President Bush or Obama would glorify war as an intrinsically beautiful life experience, but there is a lot of that in popular culture, including the miitary and especially in recruitment propaganda. Recruiters will stoop to anything to sell militarism, so in one pitch they may be extolling careers, family and safety, while in the next they are selling macho self-sacrifice and how to become a Real Man through combat. Having said all that, I'm quite willing to concede

"and mjgeddes. The last is a sort of crank like M*nt*f*x and not worth reading, but I didn't even regard him as being harmful (scrolling past comments is not very costly)" Charming. Speaking of power, there's an interesting article on libel on CNN, I understand a number of people have gotten themselves sued for online comments. 'Can the law keep up with technology?' Cheers

I don't really know how libel/slander laws interact with the first amendment. If I had to guess, it would be that someone has to make factual claims about someone in order for libel/slander laws to be applicable. So subjective statements like "X is a misinformed idiot" would not make one legally liable for damages against X's..uhhh...reputation. While statements like "X was convicted for aggravated assault on December 12, 1989" would make someone legally liable for damage against X's reputation. Anyone care to fill me in?

Here is a post of Eugene Volokh's Murderers’ Right to “Privacy” vs. Freedom of Speech that is along those lines.

Quoting Wonderment: I'm much more inclined to say that the time to prevent genocide and war is now. In other words, if we dedicate ourselves to promoting peace, social justice, conflict resolution and disarmament BEFORE things get hopeless, we won't have to worry about demonic choices (situations under which we can not avoid evil).

Once a Hitler is on the march, we have already failed. Jews didn't need to be protected by the armies of England and the US; they needed to be protected from the political stupidity, insensitivity and/or passivity of the German people during the Weimar Republic. Once Hitler started exterminating people, all the choices were demonic.

There is room for doubt and moral ambiguity within the pacifist framework, so I don't claim to have all the answers to all the questions.

Hey Wonderment, I want to run something by you. I'm in the Norman Angell camp. I think war is pointless. It doesn't give life meaning, it doesn't make boys into men, it's not good for the soul. It's just a huge fucking waste. Not everybody agrees:

Europe, having been liberated from nuclear terror at the conclusion of the Cold War, proved unable to muster the gumption to deal

Clay, I agree with everything you said and, like you, find the quoted material to be deranged.

Anyway, I'm 100% for the abolition of war. I just don't want to be a sucker. I don't want people to take advantage of my declared commitment to nonviolence.

Nonviolence doesn't always win. Sometimes it is crushed and its practitioners are victims of the forces of violence. That's much more true of war, however. The practitioners of war tend to do very badly with only the elite non-combatants and their non-combatant families faring well, and that's usually just on the winning side. War, for example, was delightful for the warist Cheneys and the warist Bushes. No casualities there. No suckers in those families. On the other hand, nonviolence is very often a winning strateg . A good study of this is "A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict" which documents the enormous successes of NV throughout the 20th century, including -- in some circumstances -- even against tyrants like Hitler.

Is there a pacifism of "I'm going shrink my military and you're going to shrink your military too?" In the current context the USA should definitely make the first move and shrink our conventional forces way way down

In the censorship discussion, they neglected to consider the case where all members of the forum are trolls or pseudo-trolls. In this case, you can expect that the sane, non-troll individuals are downranked, and yet the voting system preserves authenticity for the trolls. You see, there is a serious problem with ranking systems in that objective truth is mistakenly identified with majority opinion. Brian does a decent job of inquesting Eliezer's views but he does not push in the direction that I would prefer. As Eliezer says, the viewpoint of the engineer is to practically reject the more esoteric, poorly defined questions, such as the role of finite lifetimes in feeding personal motivation. In my opinion, this kind of question is just too open-ended and subjective to make for a very interesting point. At least in the course of this discussion Brian almost reached the interesting problem of the practicality or feasibility of the transhuman agenda. Eliezer's response in defending or arguing for this agenda was weak, and remains a weak point of the entire "transhuman field", as far as I can see. Eliezer, for example, makes some basic extrapolations from neuronal firing

Quoting Wonderment: Clay, I agree with everything you said and, like you, find the quoted material to be deranged.

Hey Wonderment, I started reading "The March of Folly."

Hey Wonderment, I started reading "The March of Folly."

Perfect timing.

"If you wish to converse with me, define your terms." - Voltaire Generally, I find that public discussions of terms which have many widely divergent interpretations and do not clearly define which they are addressing are not useful or productive. Discussions of "trolling" usually fall under this principle - the people talking about it all seem to have different intuitive and connotational understandings of what the word means, and so end up talking past each other. Wikipedia's definition of the term isn't a bad one. But it relies upon intent, which is often difficult to demonstrate, and certain intents must be primary for the label to apply, which is even harder to demonstrate. Usually people just use it to refer to anyone who persists in posting things that they wish they wouldn't. By that definition, Eliezer has been trolling the Internet for years...

this kind of conversation, leaves me contemplating the fine line between dazzling with brilliance, and baffling with bullshit. then too, how smart does one have to be, to design a brain smarter than the designer?