I’ve come across some situations where it would be fitting to promote ET/CF/PF, though I didn’t think it would turn into anything. I shouldn’t be so pessimistic about individual cases. There are better and worse places to promote but I don’t know whom it will reach and since most attempts convert no one, interesting even one person would be worth it. So I think it’s more about whether it looks appropriate to promote.
I’ve previously said I wanted to power up more before doing a bunch of advocacy. But I don’t need to do lot in the beginning. While I’m a beginner, instead of actively seeking out opportunities I can take them as they come. I don’t think I need to save anything for when I’m more skilled either.
The opportunity I had in mind would involve comparing you to Socrates since the guy said there are probably no living honest truth-seekers like Socrates. And that if he was found then he should be studied.
So I take you would not want to give feedback, rather give general advice. Would you not want to read examples or updates about our advocacy? Rather let us do it without your awareness? I guess it would be fine for us to share examples and discuss it amongst ourselves?
You can share stuff you do. Just be careful about brigading. If someone shares a link, everyone else shouldn’t rush there to join in for a couple days. The right thing isn’t “never join in where someone else already is” either though. The social rules for this stuff aren’t easy to write out as simple, logical rules.
I think it’s important that people aren’t always promoting stuff totally alone but also a lot of times it’s more than one person the others gets accused of being shills or sock puppets or brigaders, etc., not viewed as independent voices.
Hopefully in the course of promoting you and recruiting advocates we can find you someone who is willing to have a suitably long & organized debate and/or who has a large audience.
Maybe at some point I’ll try search to see if there’s any people (like academics) who write about that kinda stuff & who might be interested in talking with you & contact them. (That said, I feel like even if I do find someone, they’re probably unlikely to want to do a very long & very organized debate. But it could be worth a try nonetheless. Even just one good person could be worth it.)
Ditto. But lower priority tho since they’re not your preferred topics.
Regarding Paths Forward, you wrote:
Do you think the biggest reason they don’t want Paths Forward is:
They don’t want criticism
They regard Paths Forward as a burden and think it’d take too long? (Though that’s largely solved by your idea of having a less demanding written debate policy (like you mentioned))
They’re not aware of Paths Forward? (Though most of the specific examples you mentioned I think are aware of it)
Something else?
If #1, I wonder how that could be solved? Would a world in which admitting your mistakes and learning from criticism were high status solve it? Or is status (and related stuff like feelings of embarrassment) even the issue? Is there some other reason(s) they don’t want to face criticism?
Yeah, I guess I’m guilty of this in the sense of imagining that if only Paths Forward were widespread, radical life extension would get way more resources. (I.e., imagining that people (or “enemies”, to use your word) who want resources devoted to stuff I regard as less important would lose.)
That makes me wonder: do I want it applied to myself? Idk if I want to open myself up to unbounded criticism. Atm I think I’m much more like thin-skinned intellectuals who feel embarrassed by criticism. I’d have to work very hard on rewriring my brain (so to speak) to fully realize in all cases that criticism is good and something I should be eager to exploit/capitalize on/profit from/learn from/use to get better. Reminds me of Do You Really, Actually, Genuinely Want Unbounded Discussion? (Also, Breaking People seems relevant.) But doing that would be a big project and require lots of practice to consistently change how I feel about unbounded criticism. I could still try it though.
Incidentally, perhaps that answers my initial question: assuming public intellectuals are psychologically similar to me, I guess being pained by criticism might be the biggest reason they don’t want Paths Forward (assuming they’re aware of Paths Forward). I suppose that’s something both I and they need to work on. But, then again, I imagine those public intellectuals might also imagine that Paths Forward would be a huge hassle that’s not worth it (despite your idea of having a less demanding written debate policy). So idk.
Yeah they could be worth contacting. Ravikant especially I’ve seen express interest in DD stuff.
Yeah they’re anti-Popper (I haven’t watched the linked video, I just read the title) so I struggle to imagine them being receptive. Also I guess they’re more focused on promoting Rand rather than new philosophers.
Aside from their funding though, maybe if they could be convinced to open up a discussion forum of their own (like I think you may have suggested in your The Ayn Rand Institute Is Bad video), perhaps that could be a venue for recruiting lots of Rand fans. (Hopefully without getting banned like you did from Harry Binswanger’s forum.) Maybe some of us could email them and reply to their social media etc asking for a forum.
Yeah that’s what I was thinking. You might be dead by then! (I don’t mean to be morbid.)
Oh yeah that’s a great point. I saw (but haven’t read) that new book (I assume The Sovereign Child by Aaron Stupple is the one you’re referring to?).
I could reply to them on Twitter and Substack (and/or use Facebook groups they’re in and/or email them) asking them what they think of your criticism of TCS. That feels like the best and most straightforward/easy to implement idea so far.
Also maybe asking them if they’ve considered doing Paths Forward. And if they don’t want to do it, then why not. And explain that I think there’d be way more progress in a world where way more intellectuals have Paths Forward so I’d be very interested in reasons why intellectuals like them might not think it’s worth doing. And also explain that if TCS is correct (or a version of it modified by Temple’s criticisms is correct), then more intellectuals (especially in fields like pedagogy, parenting, etc.) doing Paths Forward could accelerate the widespread adoption of TCS.
Yeah that’s a good idea. For now I think I’ll focus on the TCS one since I feel like that’s a good one to start with. But afterward I might come back to this idea.
I wonder how effective that’d be. I feel like I’d be better off starting with a more targeted approach.
YouTubers could be a good idea! For general promotion (not specifically Paths Forward), what if I found a YouTuber (perhaps something like Kirk Wilcox, i.e., not a huge audience but not nothing either (~6k subscribers and ~1k views per video in his case FYI)) who was happy to do a live online audio debate. Is that something you’d be interested in?
Incidentally, what would you consider “a large audience”? Like you mentioned earlier:
I was initially a bit pessimistic about the odds of any of the ideas I brainstormed working but your replies (and especially some of your ideas like the TCS one) have inspired me to take this a bit more seriously.
That said, at the moment, reaching out to all these people would be a bit of an overwhelming project. But it’s something I think I’d like to do when I can.
For now, I’ll have a think about getting started with the TCS idea.
I do prefer async text debate or combined text/video debate. I’m willing to do some audio-only debates but I think they’re less productive.
Combined text/video debate involves writing during a call. It can create a forum thread or tree. The important points from the voice discussion end up in a written document at the end. I can do all the writing or we can both write.
Also btw I want to be able to record my own copy of debates. I think some large channels/podcasts might want to have the only recording and then edit it as they please. Mainstream media certainly does that with interviews – in general they don’t let the guest record and then post their own unedited recording online.
Yeah, good luck. Just be prepared to be ignored or to receive mean replies. I suggest viewing it as an experiment and a way to test things out and gather information rather than a plan where you feel invested in success.
In general I think any group with no forum probably doesn’t want a forum. And if they made a forum, they’d probably ruin it with moderation. But it’s a completely reasonable thing to ask for.
I think most “public intellectuals” are social climbers more than intellectuals. I think merit doesn’t rise to the top well and a more debate-and-Paths-Forward oriented system would threaten the careers of low-merit people in addition to challenging the social system itself. ~Everyone has entrenched ideas about what seems high or low status to them which Paths Forward clashes with some despite also agreeing some. Lots of people see being open to debate, being confident/fearless, winning debates, etc. as high status, but they also have a lot of other ideas about status, which are harder to name and explain, which are allowing people who are bad at rationality to be prominent.
But you didn’t publish a book, don’t have 100,000+ people trying to learn from your ideas, aren’t claiming to be a thought leader with great ideas, aren’t telling your fans you’re rational and good with debate and criticism, etc. So it’s appropriate, not hypocritical, to ask many public intellectuals to meet higher standards than you meet yourself.
Either radical life extension would get more resources or you would get more satisfying answers (than you get today) about why it shouldn’t. If it lost the debate, you’d know why it lost, and have arguments available to persuade you and change your mind and presumably explain to you the importance of other things, so it’d be a much better situation than today where you’re dissatisfied with resource allocation.
My general hope is that even if debate policies threaten the careers of many intellectuals, their fans will like debate policies anyway. They told their fans they’re good at debate and their ideas would win debates, so the fans will expect them to act accordingly, not dodge debate, not refuse to have debate policies, etc.
However, I think social status memes are found in everyone, not just the people currently benefitting from them the most. Similar to how patriarchy memes are widespread in women not just in men. And you can find anti-child memes in children.
I don’t know what resistance will come from fans and other lower status people towards debate policies. But on general principles I expect any challenge to the current status hierarchy to face some resistance from basically everyone. So although fans generally think their favored intellectuals would do well in debate, I also expect them to resist the idea of more debate in some way because it challenges the status hierarchy, but I don’t know what specific form that resistance will take.
I think people have very strong intuitive biases in favor of the status hierarchy. Some people also have a favorable opinion of debate, probably because the debates happening today don’t challenge the status hierarchy itself (as widespread debate policies would) and also today’s debates are mostly ineffective for dramatically lowering anyone’s status (they usually aren’t that threatening). Most debates today take place between people of similar social status, which is something CF wants to change. And if debates were more decisive due to using CF’s ideas about decisive arguments, people might like debate less, or many other things could happen, idk.
Currently lots of debates are about charisma, not facts and logic (even if the participants and audience say otherwise).
Maybe debate policies for charisma-based debates wouldn’t challenge the status hierarchy much, but debate policies for rational debates would. Maybe the part a lot of people won’t like is the attempt to change the type of debate to be more rational, logical, non-charismatic, slow-paced, etc. Many people might see it as autistic, annoying, pedantic, boring, try hard, intuitively low status, etc.
A related issue is how lots of people actually don’t seem to mind misquotes (or inaccurate paraphrases) much and don’t sympathize much with people who complain about them. I basically want to change debate norms so that “that’s a misquote” is a decisive refutation (regardless of whether the meaning is similar to the original) not a detail that should be glossed over. If there was a good point along with the misquote, they can try again with an accurate quote, which audiences might find repetitive/boring (in general, there would be a lot of accepting a refutation then trying again with a different version of the idea).
Also the emphasis on resolving disagreements decisively could be seen kind of like constantly trying to back people into corners and trap them with no escape and no way to save face.
Also I want people to actually debate ideas in detail using criticism, not give educational or persuasive speeches to audiences (which is a fine activity too, but not what I think a debate should be). Audiences might prefer “debates” that cater to them instead of focusing on criticism and ideas.
I also want debates to be more cooperative in some ways which conflicts with debate as tribal representatives fighting for their tribe against the other tribe (a lot of popular political debate seems like that).
Liquid Zulu writes something like a debate tree, he calls it “flow”, while he’s doing voice debates. He has debated less known people than you. I don’t like the flames and antagonistic expressions in his debate video thumbnails though. I haven’t watched any of his debates in detail either.
There could people in his discord channel who wants to do text debate here as well.
Have you ever debated on the superiority of async text debate over regular video debate?
Really nice find! Since ET hasn’t followed up on this, I assume he’d rather us reach out to LiquidZulu. What do you think I (or we) should say to LiquidZulu?
(I don’t mean to be morbid.)