SneerClub

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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.

AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)

This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.

[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]

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LessWronger wants AI safety to focus more on "controversial beliefs" (www.lesswrong.com)

submitted 1 day ago by TinyTimmyTokyo@awful.systems to c/sneerclub@awful.systems

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Richard Ngo (rationalist circle-jerker and former employee of DeepMind and OpenAI) has finally identified the key problem that AI safety people won't address: it won't engage honestly with taboos.

More specifically, AI safety people are failing to acknowledge how much brown people suck. And if AI people can't acknowledge controversial and obvious truths such as this, what's going to happen with their LLMs?

Even Scoot, the bravest of the brave truth-tellers, is so fearful of being tarred a racist that he covers his actual beliefs about black people in jokes and irony.

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[–] gerikson@awful.systems 10 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Ngo has been playing footsie with race science since as long as I have been skimming LW.

The irony is that in any "normal" space (i.e. not Stormfront) he would have been booted out toot sweet for being a racist. On LW, he's tolerated, even celebrated, but apparently not enough for his liking. It's not enough that he can spew race science unopposed by any meaningful reaction, everyone else has to take his position.

Edit

the piece he authored 6 months ago and references here is a doozy too

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FuGfR3jL3sw6r8kB4/richard-ngo-s-shortform?commentId=9g5QK3Km25fMBHgcK

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The overwhelming majority of successful civilizations throughout history have been nation-states, at least to some degree, which should be addressed in some capacity by any argument claiming that it's a suboptimal way to organize a society.

uh... the Roman Empire was a nation-state? Holy Roman Empire? (ok not as good an example) Ottoman Empire? Basically all of India pre-Brits?

A huge part of the French Revolution was the codification of France as "The Nation" of French people, not as the weird personifciation of the king. But somehow I suspect that bringing up the French Republic won't be hugely popular in this crowd.

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 4 points 14 hours ago

/s The United Kingdom of England and Scotland, the Principality of Wales, the subject territory of Ireland (Let alone Normandy and Gascony) were famously lacking in linguistic, religious, and cultural differences back when they were a great power. /s

I feel like the answer to the first is "name one". He can't mean any Chinese dynasty, the Mongols, any of the Islamic caliphates, the UK, France. Maybe he means Bronze Age Egypt? They kept hiring all the Nubians they could get though.