Yudkowsky: eugenics is now "the third most important project in the world." After AI doom and anime, presumably.
Yudkowsky: eugenics is now "the third most important project in the world." After AI doom and anime, presumably.
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Working in the field of genetics is a bizarre experience. No one seems to be interested in the most interesting applications of their research. [...] The scientific establishment, however, seems to not have gotten the memo. [...] I remember sitting through three days of talks at a hotel in Boston, watching prominent tenured professors in the field of genetics take turns misrepresenting their own data [...] It is difficult to convey the actual level of insanity if you haven’t seen it yourself.
Like Yudkowsky writing about quantum mechanics, this is cult shit. "The scientists refuse to see the conclusion in front of their faces! We and we alone are sufficiently Rational to embrace the truth! Listen to us, not to scientists!"
Gene editing scales much, much better than embryo selection.
"... Mister Bond."
The graphs look like they were made in Matplotlib, but on another level, they're giving big crayon energy.
Working in the field of genetics is a bizarre experience
How the fuck would you know that, mate? You don't even have a degree in your field, which, let me remind you, is (allegedly) computer science. Has Yud ever been near an actual genetics professor?
these posers would repost "i fucking love science" on facebook but clearly never came back home in dead of the night after 13-hour shift in lab smelling of cum and mothballs because of a minor accident that nevertheless allowed to push envelope of known world just that little bit farther
Working in the [field] is a bizarre experience. No one seems to be interested in the most interesting applications of their research
depending on field, it might be crackpottery or straight up criminal. but if you post shit like this on linkedin, then it's suddenly "inspiring" and "thought-provoking"
Our knowledge has advanced to the point where, if we had a safe and reliable means of modifying genes in embryos, we could literally create superbabies
and from that point on it's all counterfactual
Am i misunderstanding the data? No it is all the scientists who are wrong. (He is also ignoring the "scientists" who do agree with him, who all seem to have a special room for ww2 paraphernalia)
Okay what is LW's misunderstanding?
a fairly sizable chunk of everything, generally.
That there is a secret group of scientists who know something is up and they are suppressing this technology.
watching prominent tenured professors in the field of genetics take turns misrepresenting their own data
I meant to know their misunderstanding of the data regarding eugenics, though I'm no longer hoping to get that here.
secret group of scientists
The text you've just quoted says that it is all geneticists that are unwittingly wrong, the precise opposite proposition than the one in your attempt to paint their discourse with the purples of crackpot conspiracy.
Soyweiser has likely accurately identified that you're JAQing in bad faith, but on the slim off chance you actually want to educate yourself, the rationalwiki page on Biological Determinism and Eugenics is a decent place to start to see the standard flaws and fallacies used to argue for pro-eugenic positions. Rationalwiki has a scathing and sarcastic tone, but that tone is well deserved in this case.
To provide a brief summary, in general, the pro-eugenicists misunderstand correlation and causation, misunderstand the direction of causation, overestimate what little correlation there actually is, fail to understand environmental factors (especially systemic inequalities that might require leftist solutions to actually have any chance at fixing), and refuse to acknowledge the context of genetics research (i.e. all the Neo-Nazis and alt righters that will jump on anything they can get).
The lesswrongers and SSCs sometimes whine they don't get fair consideration, but considering they take Charles Murray the slightest bit seriously they can keep whining.
Ow wait you weren't asking me to explain what I meant, you were asking me to defend the correctness of the professors in genetics vs a crackpot at an event where I wasn't, nor am I qualified as im not a professor in genetics, nor is Yud, after I just mentioned that I don't think unqualified people are talking about this. So you were trying the Socratic method? How is that working out for you?
The text you’ve just quoted
Yes, and im quoting the LW crackpot, they are not saying they are unwittingly wrong, it is hinting at that they are intentionally wrong. (Using some very dodgy analogies (no making a chicken bigger isn't like creating a 14 foot human that is a crazy comparison due to the whole thing in biology where stuff works differently at different scales (see also the strength of ants), it is powerful hype language however) and unscientific shit (the random asspulled graphs)). Also note that his whole article is using their fears of AI to promote that we should do more eugenics (using the weirdest logic imaginable, we should take care not to make mistakes and do everything slow in AI so we need to do eugenics fast) and that the professors are wrong/keeping back. And this is just what I can come up with after quickly skimming parts of the article (I don't have the time/energy/expertise to do more anyway, I mean imagine if I had to look up all the literature they reference and see if it is correct (all 5 of them, I mean you did notice that there were only ~5 links to actual scientific articles right? Not an amount of backing I would want to base my political actions on (you also noticed that right?))). It also hits classic crankery levels, not only are the professors missing/suppressing something this thing is also a revolutionary thing which could save humanity. (also note he admits that the technology of editing babies on one gene is not solved yet (but they are close). Which should make you wonder why they are dismissive of 'ethical issues').
It also doesn't help that your reactions are pattern matching the 'im just curious, could you explain yourself' kind of person we used to get on r/sneerclub who 90% of the times wasn't curious but actually was just very pro race science or an annoying contrarian debatebro with yt induced brain damage (which got them banned very quickly, so word of warning).
E: and ow, you did notice that people in the comments are trying to say they should the guy who was recently famous for being able to keep his arm down into this right? (Fucking Ents who are pretending that the rest of the world doesn't affect them).
the user has been gently directed to the debate club
I was tempted to give them their free ticket to the egress for saying "paint their discourse with the purples".