From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Jun 04 2002 - 19:58:46 MDT
If anyone wishes to provide a concrete example of any tribalistic statement
I have made in the last 24 months, I await their presentation.
As for claiming to know how it will go, I never have made that claim and
never will. But I know more about it than most people do, and can instantly
rule out many scenarios that would strike others as plausible. And I would
likewise caution you against losing track of the critical distinction
between "I'm not willing to listen to any ideas except my own" and "I may be
wrong, but I *know* that this idea, which happens to be your cherished idea,
is wrong."
Arrogant? I'll confess to being amodest. If anyone wishes to demonstrate a
case that is unambiguously the former, go ahead.
Otherwise, I'm sick of pretending to be any less competent than I am for
fear of scaring others off. And I won't do it here of all places. If this
offends you, then speak your piece and justify it. The things I'm hearing
spoken about me are precisely those accusations leveled at science by
contemporary culture; arrogance, unwillingness to listen, thinking one knows
everything. This is not in itself evidence that the accusations are off
base in my particular case, but it does mean that it will take more than the
naked accusation to worry me. I know how these accusations arise with
respect to the culture clash of science with humans, and as far as I can
tell, current evidence indicates that this interaction has gone likewise.
Being able to shoot down all your ideas is not evidence of arrogance. Doing
so rather than smiling and shrugging is not tactlessness. And knowing
things others don't is not "thinking one knows everything"; it is one of the
frequent interim prizes.
If I'm that easy a target, go ahead and tear apart my ideas. I would have
no trouble dissecting ideas built on such flawed cognition as I am being
made out to have. *After* you've shot down my ideas, *then* you can analyze
the personality flaws that led up to them. That is the proper order of
things.
Does it worry *any* of you people - you know who you are - that you have
found yourselves saying *exactly the same things* about me that nonfuturists
say about Extropians or that nonscientists say about scientists? Has it
occurred to you that perhaps some of the same mistakes are at work?
Some people are good at what they do. This is not undemocratic. It is not
democratic either. It is a game played with Nature, not with one's fellow
humans. Please do not interpret moves in the former game as moves in the
latter; they have different rules.
Sincerely,
Eliezer.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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