Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
It should be noted that fascists and kiddy-diddlers are by no means mutually exclusive sets of humans.
All I wanted to add - proceed with the squabbling!
All I wanted to add - proceed with the squabbling!
The Elon Musk Thread
- Thread starter Woebot
- Start date
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
On the contrary, they seem to go together.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
Alrite, first let's separate the issue. Gus is conflating the two things I brought up and adding a third which I didn't. So
1) longtermism
2) tech connections to far right and/or reactionary thought
3) a whataboutism argument about all the bad things corporations outside tech do and whether they're worse
Don't have time for all rn, so I'll start w/longtermism
This is by a former longtermist philosopher turned apostate
aeon.co
A couple of relatively indepth articles by journalists
newrepublic.com
www.vox.com
A largely critical review of McAskill's book by a philosopher who goes into some of more technical philosophical tenets - population ethics, value neutrality, etc
All of those pieces have a wealth of further quotable bits, but I encourage anyone interested to just read them for yourselves
1) longtermism
2) tech connections to far right and/or reactionary thought
3) a whataboutism argument about all the bad things corporations outside tech do and whether they're worse
Don't have time for all rn, so I'll start w/longtermism
This is by a former longtermist philosopher turned apostate
Why longtermism is the world’s most dangerous secular credo | Aeon Essays
It started as a fringe philosophical theory about humanity’s future. It’s now richly funded and increasingly dangerous
aeon.co
A couple of relatively indepth articles by journalists
The Heavy Price of Longtermism
Longtermists focus on ensuring humanity’s existence into the far future. But not without sacrifices in the present.
newrepublic.com
Effective altruism’s most controversial idea
Longtermism is influencing billionaires and politicians. Should it guide the future of humanity?
www.vox.com
A largely critical review of McAskill's book by a philosopher who goes into some of more technical philosophical tenets - population ethics, value neutrality, etc
All of those pieces have a wealth of further quotable bits, but I encourage anyone interested to just read them for yourselves
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
The Vox article in particular does a good job of distinguishing between weak and strong longtermism. Let's call them wlt and slt for convenience. Wlt, as it says, basically just anyone concerned with the future beyond the short to medium term. Climate Extinction etc would certainly qualify. So would things like seed banks.
Strong longtermism is the what's being pushed by the actual ideologues (i.e. philosophers) - McAskill, Ord, Greaves, etc, and their forerunners like Bostrom. The basic idea is 1) more people will exist in the totality of the future than exist now 2) by their utilitarian ethics (slt basically == utilitarianism updated for the age of space travel, AI, VR, etc) the greatest good is the most aggregate happiness, therefore 3) the math leads to all kinds of, putting it mildly, counterintuitive conclusions about how to allocate resources to increase happiness, mostly ignoring current suffering and crises (i.e. climate change, poverty) in favor of preventing highly unlikely but possible "existential risk".
Because the slt philosophers realize that many of their conclusions would be unpalatable, if not outright despicable, to the public at large, there is a conscious effort to soft-pedal the weak version while attempting to convert billionaires etc to the strong version in order to secure funding. That's where Musk, Thiel, Dustin Moskovitz, Jaan Tallinn etc come in, as well as McAskill's famous conversion of a young Sam Bankman-Fried to the cause.
Strong longtermism is the what's being pushed by the actual ideologues (i.e. philosophers) - McAskill, Ord, Greaves, etc, and their forerunners like Bostrom. The basic idea is 1) more people will exist in the totality of the future than exist now 2) by their utilitarian ethics (slt basically == utilitarianism updated for the age of space travel, AI, VR, etc) the greatest good is the most aggregate happiness, therefore 3) the math leads to all kinds of, putting it mildly, counterintuitive conclusions about how to allocate resources to increase happiness, mostly ignoring current suffering and crises (i.e. climate change, poverty) in favor of preventing highly unlikely but possible "existential risk".
Because the slt philosophers realize that many of their conclusions would be unpalatable, if not outright despicable, to the public at large, there is a conscious effort to soft-pedal the weak version while attempting to convert billionaires etc to the strong version in order to secure funding. That's where Musk, Thiel, Dustin Moskovitz, Jaan Tallinn etc come in, as well as McAskill's famous conversion of a young Sam Bankman-Fried to the cause.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
What it really minds me is the advent of neoliberalism. The Mont Pelerin founders realized similarly that many of their ideas would be unpalatable to the public so they sought, like slt, to bypass the public and go directly to the levers of power via founding think tanks and academia. They then basically soft-pedaled a watered down version (freedom to choose) as a front for the harder, very unpopular version (centrally imposed austerity). The difference with slt is that they did it much faster, years instead of decades, and they went directly to the ultrawealthy for funding as a startup would, but it's the same basic strategy.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
There's a ton more that could be said about strong longtermism, how fucked up it is and the multiple deeply flawed assumptions (i.e. what shapes the population ethics math) it rests on, but that's a decent start
So there you go: a tiny clique of philosopher-kings seeking to optimize their version of human (and/or posthuman/transhuman) happiness with essentially no democratic input, checks, etc
Gus or whoever else is welcome to post refutations either of their own or preferably, longtermist philosophers
So there you go: a tiny clique of philosopher-kings seeking to optimize their version of human (and/or posthuman/transhuman) happiness with essentially no democratic input, checks, etc
Gus or whoever else is welcome to post refutations either of their own or preferably, longtermist philosophers
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
Oh one more thing
I'd like to see any evidence that any of these people are strongly influenced by James C. Scott, who I'm very familiar with. Because there is zero indication of it in their own literature.
I'd like to see any evidence that any of these people are strongly influenced by James C. Scott, who I'm very familiar with. Because there is zero indication of it in their own literature.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
This reminds me of the bit in Spaced where Daisy is psyching herself up for a job interview she's got with a women's magazine called FLAPS, and she asks herself "What do you think about current events?", then answers "I like them; I think they're good", and nods sagely as she's just said something really insightful.
Leo
Well-known member
Elon Ignores Crypto Bros Who Took $600,000 Sculpture of Him to Tesla HQ
The Elon fanboys, who created a cryptocurrency called "Elon GOAT Token," hoped that Musk accepting a six-ton goat on a rocket would propel them to notoriety.
gizmodo.com
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Never mind Orwell or Huxley - it's Pynchon's dystopia we've sleepwalked into, isn't it?Elon Ignores Crypto Bros Who Took $600,000 Sculpture of Him to Tesla HQ
The Elon fanboys, who created a cryptocurrency called "Elon GOAT Token," hoped that Musk accepting a six-ton goat on a rocket would propel them to notoriety.
Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
Next Elon will break into a showtune song-and-dance about Free Speech while neuralinked with his Bonobo back-up dancers.
Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
"Don't Mind the Mind Virus (and Make Twitter Great Again!)"
Therrrrrre's.... a.... rampant set of notions takin' over
The values and opinions of our youth!
And we don't have to take it bendin' over,
[Musk and Bonobos bend over and peek-a-boo under their legs at the audience]
When our new moderator is so shrewd!
The fear of being canceled is no longer
The primary suppressant of our views!
[Musk and Bonobos gesticulate holding binoculars to their eyes]
Our children will assuredly be stronger
And our women will no longer be confused!
You are free to speak your mind
with no pressure to be kind.
Just think of all the libs whom you can trigger!
We just know you're salivatin'
while anxiously anticipatin'
the opportunity to say the word nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn-
[Musk's neuralink overheats and he falls to the floor, foaming at the mouth, while the Bonobos break into electrocuted chaos]
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Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
But the lead backup Bonobo dancer, Maurice, escapes backstage, thanks to a benign phenotypic anomaly which prevented the neuralink implant from short-circuiting the nervous system - the same anomaly in fact which heightened his ability to master the dance routine and climb the professional ladder at Henry's Movin' Monkeys.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
That's brilliant, in the sense of actually being awful enough to be in one of Pynchon's books.
Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
It's great hearing him pretend not to care about the boos, isn't it?