I'd also like to note that this year's organizer for the BASS was an outlier even among the rationalists for being particularly doom-y depressing, so much so that certain of the community luminaries didn't attend on that basis (it is, after all, supposed to be a pleasant social gathering). Feels a bit misleading to extrapolate greater conclusions from. Anyway, FdB would be appreciative of this post in the next round of Subscriber Writing.
I think it was clear enough at the event that not everyone shared his viewpoints (he said this explicitly a lot, which we appreciated). But afterwards, we talked to many people who did. Feel like Stephen's greater conclusions spring more from the fact that "people who believe this exist" rather than a claim about their relative dominance though.
Banger of an essay. Will be sharing this one. Makes me wonder if the individual cells in a multicellular organism are living in a kind of Plato's cave of external abstract hormones and nerve impulses that constrain and abstractify their wild amoeboid hearts.
*Yudkowsky
I'd also like to note that this year's organizer for the BASS was an outlier even among the rationalists for being particularly doom-y depressing, so much so that certain of the community luminaries didn't attend on that basis (it is, after all, supposed to be a pleasant social gathering). Feels a bit misleading to extrapolate greater conclusions from. Anyway, FdB would be appreciative of this post in the next round of Subscriber Writing.
I think it was clear enough at the event that not everyone shared his viewpoints (he said this explicitly a lot, which we appreciated). But afterwards, we talked to many people who did. Feel like Stephen's greater conclusions spring more from the fact that "people who believe this exist" rather than a claim about their relative dominance though.
"The Cave" is a great stand-alone essay, worth republishing as such.
Banger of an essay. Will be sharing this one. Makes me wonder if the individual cells in a multicellular organism are living in a kind of Plato's cave of external abstract hormones and nerve impulses that constrain and abstractify their wild amoeboid hearts.