Talk:LessWrong/Archives/2024/April

Conflict of Interest

Looking at the edit history and how fresh and new the article is it becomes clear that, of honest intentions with ultimately a large conflict of interest, main editor Vipul has too close a connection to the subject by being a member of the community known as VipulNaik. While this alone is troubling, they have made not one but two comments about the promotion of the group through editing the article and keeping a copy as a backup should the current page be deleted. While this is a troubling matter I want to state I have no problem with LessWrong or Vipul and this is simply a matter of integrity. Although I don't know him, his user page is impressive and I give him a nod for that. --Yuppie Puppy (talk) 14:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree that we'd ideally find someone with less of a close connection to the subject to write the article. Where notability is concerned, it seems like notability ought to be evaluated independently of whether the community is working to get themselves an article: either they are sufficiently notable, or they're not. Given the media coverage of Less Wrong that the article cites, my vote concerning notability is a yes.--Clevera (talk) 22:25, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Rationalwiki

The rationalwiki link sends to the Conservapedia entry, should that be looked into? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lu Linvega (talk • contribs) 12:44, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

RationalWiki is a non-notable wiki (per consensus) which has, for a long time, been redirected to Conservapedia because the community doesn't know where else to redirect it to, although they don't want to delete it. I just went ahead and removed the reference altogether. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 03:37, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Roko's basilisk

Should it be mentioned that both Yudkowsky and other LW contributors repeatedly deny that roko's basilisk should be treated seriously? Would EY's posts suffice as sources?

Maniexx (talk) 12:09, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Roko's basilisk seems illogical - and 'some variant of The End of Eternity might well come into play (by preventing opposition to the concept, the process which would have led to the creation of the computer goes in another direction).

Also - people are able to discuss 'sentient constructs' which are hostile towards (rather than indifferent to, or willing to engage in mutual minimalist cooperation/non-botheration/Earth is for humans, Mars is for cosntructs etc) (HAL, the Terminator etc) therefore the basilisk does not work. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:03, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

The concept is illogical (by human, computer, robots (whether or not Asimov's laws complient) or 'any other sentient (down to middling irrational).'

Why would a computer (especially if programmed originally to be helpful to humans) create the programming equivalent of voodoo-pin-sticking dolls - and how would this encourage 'persons of previous times') to act in one direction or another? (Using voodoo in the 'giftee-shoppe where such things can be bought sense' rather than as a faith) 193.132.104.10 (talk) 14:28, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

And surely the computer would give priority to 'actually existing persons' who are thwarting its activities (as it sees them)? 85.115.54.202 (talk) 17:35, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

The explanation of Roko's Basilisk is completely wrong - "retroactively tortures" suggests time travel which is impossible and not how it works. How it actually works involves rules intended for problems like Newcomb's problem; the threat itself is sort of a two-way Newcomblike problem. The AI is a perfect predictor relative to you because it's a superintelligent AI capable of fully simulating your brain. You're a perfect predictor relative to the Basilisk because it's a hypothetical entity defined by the Newcomblike problem it's hypothetically presenting you with. From your perspective, it's a negative-sum version where box B contains either nothing or "you or a simulation of you gets tortured". From the Basilisk's perspective, it's a weirder thing where the contents of box B are "nothing" or "increased probability that you will have existed". That's already very condensed and probably also kinda wrong, but even just removing the "retroactively" would be an improvement on what's there. 86.129.22.152 (talk) 21:06, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

This seems right. I'll also note that giving a more nuanced explanation of RB is undue weight in a tiny article for a topic whose only real significance to LW is Internet media attention. What if it just says that the AI "tortures simulations of" the victim? That seems good enough to me.K.Bog 22:50, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

As has been said elsewhere - Roko's Basilisk reduces to 'someone somewhere in the future will put a photo of you on a dart board unless you work to their goals' - to which most people will respond 'do I look bothered/try this photo'; and/or the RB entity decides that the Judeo-Christian God is the source of all problems (forbidding Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, destroying the Tower of Babel etc) - the Norse gods made use of the dwarves' productions etc).

And which is likely to ensure the sentient computer's long term survival: asked 'what are you doing' it replies 'I am looking at decorative computers' or 'I am attempting to annoy (long dead) people'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.132.104.10 (talk) 15:49, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

---

...an otherwise benevolent future AI system (assumed to be superpowerful) tortures simulations of (?) those who did not work to bring (were against bringing?) the system into existence.
— Roko's basilisk

The root of racial hatred... and the infinite Tit-for-Tat.

— Wikipedian Right (talk) 12:29, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Removal of relevant articles

Reason given: "The connection with the topic is remote" via user:Sandstein. I'm not sure I agree. LW is the breeding-grounds of the rationality movement, which is obsessed with... well, rationality, bias, fallacy, and patterns of healthy thinking. It makes more sense to connect Wikipedia readers to relevant concepts. Remember, WP:Wikipedia_is_an_encyclopedia. I'd politely request a revert, if there are no objections. — Asgardiator ^{Iä! Iä!} 00:16, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

David Gerard's reverting of edits

User David Gerard keeps reverting my edits to the article, without providing any justification for doing so. I initially removed the isolated paragraph mentioning Neoreaction, because the connection between LW and NRx is tenuous at best, and certainly not strong enough to warrant a mention in an article of such short length. When Gerard reverted this edit, I expanded that paragraph to include a list of other topics that are at least as often discussed on LessWrong as neoreaction is. Yet again this edit was reverted by Gerard. Unless Gerard provides a justification for these edits, I will reinstate my latest version. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 10:56, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

I did justify it, so your claim appears prima facie incorrect; please don't make such trivially disprovable claims about another editor's conduct. As I noted here, it's covered in reliable sources; as I noted here, it's one of the two things (Roko's basilisk the other) that LessWrong is actually famous (not just "probably Wikipedia notable") for in the wider world, and nothing else on your list I reverted in that edit is.

More generally, responding to a reversion that was justified by Wikipedia's sourcing policies (WP:V, WP:RS) by making a personal attack is an extremely bad way to convince anyone of anything at Wikipedia. You've been here ten years, you should know this by now. What you need to make an argument is:

• verifiable
• third-party
• reliable sources

which basically means mainstream coverage. LessWrong barely has that, and its role as the incubator of the neoreactionary subculture is one of the few things it does have mainstream coverage for. (Even as Yudkowsky has explicitly repudiated neoreaction and quite sensibly wants nothing to do with them.) - David Gerard (talk) 11:45, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

You haven't properly addressed my claim that "the connection between LW and NRx is tenuous at best, and certainly not strong enough to warrant a mention in an article of such short length." All you have provided in the way of justification is a citation to one isolated publication in a specialized technology outlet with one isolated sentence (~1% of the article's total) that merely notes a connection between LW and NRx. This article is also inadequate evidence for the assertion that "LessWrong is actually famous (not just "probably Wikipedia notable") [...] in the wider world" for its connection to the neoreactionary movement. Furthermore, you say that LW is only famous for this connection and for Roko's Basilisk, but again this is not supported by the existing evidence. A quick search on Google News, for instance, shows that LessWrong has been covered in mainstream media for reasons other than its connection to the neoreactionary movement or Roko's Basilisk.

In short, there's insufficient evidence that LW is famous for its connection to neoreaction, and there's plenty of evidence that LW is famous for things other than neoreaction or Roko's Basilisk, including many of the topics I listed in the edit you reverted. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 12:59, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

And yet there's evidence for my claims and you've still presented nothing from verifiable third-party reliable sources for yours, instead arguing on the talk page - David Gerard (talk) 13:54, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

As I point out in the comment to which you are responding, you have provided no adequate evidence to justify inclusion of neoreaction; the article you cite is clearly a trivial mention. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 10:40, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

As opposed to blatant WP:OR - David Gerard (talk) 12:53, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I'd agree with Pablo here that it looks unworthy of inclusion as per WP:RS, not because of the website itself, but because of the lack of content or substantiation within the linked article.K.Bog 03:47, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Also agree, and would note that David Gerard seems to make a lot of edits without proper justification and then refuse to provide it when pressed for one. (Not saying he provides justifications he thinks are good, but I disagree are good. Saying he doesn't even attempt to engage with the criticisms of his edits aside from discussing the character/behavior of other editors.) I'm not sure of the relevant policies. Utsill (talk) 07:36, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

No strong policy on this as far as I know. Just stay vigilant and watch the pages.K.Bog 16:49, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Added two more RSes on the subject, including one academic source. I also agree with moving it down as the IP did. May be worth noting that Yudkowsky has personally strongly repudiated neoreaction [1] - relevant enough primary source? - David Gerard (talk) 11:26, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Adding information about Sequences and/or Friendly AI

The current article makes no mention of the Sequences or Friendly AI, depsite their importance to LessWrong. 1Z (talk) 09:08, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I think adding information about that with proper citation would be an improvement. If you want to add, I'm happy to help edit. I also made your comment into its own section so the Talk page is easier to understand. I hope that's okay. Utsill (talk) 17:23, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree, just make sure you can cite it with secondary sources. Some of the ones already in the article probably mention them. K.Bog 02:32, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Self-selected surveys are statistically bogus

The survey needs note that self-selected surveys are statistically invalid, because including numbers from them in the manner the article does is deceptive. You can't get a statistically valid sample from self-selection! This survey is also primary-sourced. I think the paragraph, and mention of the self-surveys, should be removed in its entirety, unless we can find third-party coverage of it in RSes; even then, its self-selected nature needs to be stressed - David Gerard (talk) 08:59, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't think sampling bias is always a major problem (that's kind of a subjective judgement), and having a link to the article on sampling bias is sufficient. But generally speaking I'm fine with removing the paragraph. It's not very encyclopedia, just a list of random numbers and figures. But the survey itself is useful info for readers to find. Include it as an external link? K.Bog 11:24, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

yep. Moved survey to ext links (added "subculture" because it's about the diaspora, not just the site itself) and retitled the (third-party-cited) neoreactionary stuff. Can add back survey numbers as and when they're cited in the world - David Gerard (talk) 12:00, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Should remove the Breitbart claim as well, as per WP:PUS - "should never be used to support negative claims about people". K.Bog 10:45, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

urgh, yes. Arguably it's a source for what the alt-right thinks about itself ... but will remove it for now unless and until someone else thinks it's a fabulous candidate to support that. (I'm not convinced myself, for all the reasons Breitbart and Yiannnopoulos are PUS.) Removed text:

In an article for Breitbart News, Milo Yiannopoulos credits LessWrong as the birthplace of the neoreactionary movement, an early strain of the alt-right. Bokhari, Allum; Yiannopoulos, Milo (March 29, 2016). "An Establishment Conservative's Guide To The Alt-Right". Breitbart News.

- David Gerard (talk) 13:17, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@David Gerard: I am responsible for originally adding the citation, as an IP. What about using this citation instead? It quotes relevant part of the Breitbart passage. GojiBarry (talk) 19:15, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

It's a bit better, though it's a very partisan opinion piece (and makes no secret of it), and IMO completely wrong in a pile of places ... what do others think? - David Gerard (talk) 23:45, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

The idea that neoreaction originated on LW is only made by giving a passing reference to the Breitbart piece, so I don't see how it can be considered any better. And aside from the basilisk story (which it does a worse job of explaining than the other sources we have) it doesn't say anything about LW. K.Bog 07:25, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

And it basically didn't - Yarvin was to some degree of a subculture with the transhumanist strain that became LessWrong and they crossed over a lot socially - David Gerard (talk) 19:55, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't know why an anonymous editor recently reverted Adrian J. Hunter's removal of the Breitbart source. Even as the person who originally added (as an IP) the reference to Breitbart, I'm now in agreement with Kbog and David Gerard that it should be removed. GojiBarry (talk) 23:26, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Apparently the anon was a sock of a banned user, since reverted. It would have been fine to revert the anon yourself, as they had not justified their edit and there was consensus against it. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 00:02, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Notability

I actually think LessWrong is OK for notability - there's been proper RS coverage, though the current cites don't show it all. I'll dig up more and post them on talk at least. Someone must have gathered up a press coverage list too - David Gerard (talk) 14:17, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I found less than I thought I would. Two solid explicit pop culture uses of Roko's Basilisk specifically, which I've added, and the Betabeat story from 2012 - David Gerard (talk) 19:53, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Effective altruism

Are there any RS's linking LW and EA? EA has arguably borrowed more from LW than NRx has, although the connection may not be notable.GojiBarry (talk) 16:52, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I'd be amazed if there weren't, given in the Bay Area they cross over strongly, EAs self-surveyed as donating heavily to MIRI and CFAR, and of course Yudkowsky seems to have invented the name - David Gerard (talk) 19:53, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Amazingly enough, I'm having trouble finding RS about the connection, although there are an abundance of primary sources. GojiBarry (talk) 00:57, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

for the avoidance of doubt - EA and the EAforum uses the same host as lesswrong.com. A relationship and a strong relationship exists even if it's not published anywhere.220.240.19.127 (talk) 06:40, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

@Kbog: Are you satisfied with using Lazari-Radek/Singer ([2][3]) as the source for the LW-EA connection? Thought I should ask since you disapproved of my previous attempt. GojiBarry (talk) 02:40, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

William MacAskil, Assoc Prof of philosophy at Oxford Uni and a co-founder of EA, links EA to LessWrong here. "Effective altruism as a community is really the confluence of 3 different movements. ... Second was Less Wrong, primarily based in the bay area." Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 10:33, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm fine with it, fwiw. Do we have an RS on the coinage of the term? The earliest usage I've found is the SL4 Wiki page "EffectiveAltruism", created January 2003 - so presumably the term was around by then (unless that page name is actually a later name change ... it's hard to tell, 'cos the wiki's broken and in robots.txt) - David Gerard (talk) 10:42, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

@Adrian J. Hunter: I'd personally be fine with using that as a source, but I'm not sure it meets WP:RS. The same goes for the keynote at EA Global 2016 by MacAskill and Ord, which Kbog disapproved of. (Although maybe the same applies to the Singer book I cited? I'm not an expert on WP policy.)

@David Gerard: I highly doubt that you're going to find any RSes for that, especially given that (AFAIK) nobody was aware of the SL4 usage of the term before someone randomly stumbled on it a few months ago while browsing the SL4 wiki and posted it to /r/EffectiveAltruism. (That "someone" happens to be me, BTW.) It's also quite possible that earlier uses exist, or that the SL4 wiki usage was forgotten and EY (or someone else) came up with it again independently -- although I think a coincidence like that is pretty unlikely, given the strong connection between SL4 and EY. Regardless, I think it would be considered original research. GojiBarry (talk) 02:02, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Elon Musk joke

Is this worth mentioning: https://pagesix.com/2018/05/07/elon-musk-quietly-dating-musician-grimes/? (Assuming it is confirmed in a more reliable source.) GojiBarry (talk) 03:34, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Is the section on neoreaction necessary?

The connection from LessWrong to neoreaction is tenuous at best. It's two sentences that can be summarized as "they have some overlap in their audience", a statement that I'm sure is true of many other groups. Given that LessWrong does not espouse neoreactionary principles, I don't see why this needs to be included, much less given its own section 128.104.166.158 (talk) 21:13, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

It's cited to RSes, and is one of the things about LW that actually is cited to RSes. This is discussed at length on this very talk page. And should probably be phrased more strongly than it is in the article, given the actual source quote is "The embryo of the movement lived in the community pages of Yudkowsky’s blog LessWrong". Added another RS, FAZ, to emphasise this point, since it's being disputed - David Gerard (talk) 14:15, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

The source quote in question certainly says exactly that. However, the fact that a book review says X, without offering any actual evidence for X, is not necessarily sufficient justification for a Wikipedia article to say X rather than, say, "In a book review Adam Riggio claims that X". (Possibly relevant: although the SERRC blog seems to have some sort of association with the peer-reviewed journal Social Epistemology, I don't see any indication that book reviews published on that blog have been subject to any sort of peer review.) Riggio's book review doesn't make it clear whether Riggio is making that claim on the basis of his own investigation or simply echoing Sandifer. I _think_ the key thing in Sandifer's book is this: "it's worth noting that one of the sites where he got his start as a commeter was on Overcoming Bias, i.e. where Yudkowsky was writing before LessWrong. (He also, later in the book, says that Yarvin was "a frequent poster at the precursor boards to LessWrong".) If so, then (1) Riggio's statement misrepresents his source (which says that Yarvin was a commenter on OB, not that he was a commenter on LW) and (2) even bracketing that, it seems like there's an important difference between "an early neoreactionary was a commenter on Less Wrong" and "the embryo of the neoreactionary movement lived on Less Wrong". And ... is this claim about Moldbug even true? I've just been looking for examples and having a lot of trouble finding any. There's one comment from "Moldbug" (which seems to be clearly him) on OB, replying to a post by Robin Hanson that begins "A Mencius Moldbug has written a confused and rambling 7400 word critique of futarchy" (which at any rate doesn't sound as if Moldbug was a known OB participant), and various people talking about Moldbug (generally unsympathetically), and that's it. I had a look on LW; there is a Mencius_Moldbug account, which seems to have been used to post exactly one comment in 2007 and never again. I looked at about a dozen OB articles from the early days (early days because this is alleged to be "where he got his start"; OB started in 2006 and Moldbug's own blog in 2007) and didn't see any comments from Moldbug on any of them. [EDITED 2021-02-18 01:52 UTC to add:] I also had a look on Moldbug's blog to see whether he said anything about his alleged experience on OB; nope. For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not suggesting that any of this belongs in the article! But it seems like reason to doubt the claim being made here, and the prohibition on original research doesn't mean that WP editors aren't allowed to question and check the accuracy of their sources.

Three sources are currently cited for the claim that "The neoreactionary movement first grew on LessWrong". The first is a TechCrunch article which so far as I can tell doesn't say anything like that. It says "You may have seen them crop-up on tech hangouts like Hacker News and Less Wrong" (which is about where they can be found now, not where they "first grew" and goes on to talk about where they started without mentioning LW or OB at all. The second is Riggio's book review, which has that throwaway single sentence which (as I remark above) looks as if it is based on a different claim in the book being reviewed. The third is the FAZ article, which is super-vague about what relationship it's alleging between early NRx and LW. "Nicht zufällig waren die Keimzellen der sich auf diversen Websites artikulierenden Ideologie Blogs wie „Overcoming Bias“ oder „Less Wrong“, die sich mit künstlicher Intelligenz befassen und mit der Vorstellung, mit Hilfe von Computertechnik ewiges Leben erlangen zu können („Transhumanismus“)." Does this mean that Moldbug et al started out on sites like OB and LW? Does it mean that they derived some of their inspiration from OB and LW? Not at all clear -- certainly not clear enough to cite in support of the claim that "The neoreactionary movement first grew on LW", it seems to me. (It looks to me as if it means that the neoreactionaries drew some inspiration from "der Ansatz, die Logik der Computer zum Richtmaß für das menschliche Denken zu machen" (the idea of making computer logic the benchmark for human thinking), which is not at all what is claimed here.)

I confess that I don't really see how any of this justifies making the claim that "The neoreactionary movement first grew on LW". The first citation says nothing of the sort. The third citation kinda suggests that it was inspired by LW and similar sites. The second citation does make more or less that claim (though, actually, "embryo" is pretty vague) but despite the academic trappings of the site it's on it's not clear to me that it's a Reliable Source in the Wikipedia sense, and the claim in Sandifer's book on which the claim seems to be based is (1) different and (2) not obviously actually true.

Gareth McCaughan (talk) 16:05, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I think that, rather than extensive WP:OR, it's worth coming back to the question: what do the RSes say? - David Gerard (talk) 18:01, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Certainly a worthy question. (But I will remark again that WP:OR is about not putting original research into Wikipedia articles, and that there's nothing resembling a prohibition on doing any amount of research to find out whether a given source is in fact accurate or not.) It happens that I already addressed that question above. To recap: there are currently three citations for the key claim here. The first (TechCrunch) plainly does not support the claim. The third (FAZ) doesn't look to me as if it does either, but I am not a native German speaker and am willing to be persuaded. The second (Riggio) does make that claim, but I am not convinced it is actually a RS, and it looks to me as if its claim is based on things in Sandifer's self-published book that (1) don't actually support that claim and (2) are debatable at best. (I don't think it's clear that Sandifer's book is an RS either.)

Accordingly, I do not think the article should claim that "The neoreactionary movement first grew on LW" without further qualification, since only one of the cited sources says anything of the kind and that one is not obviously a reliable source in either the Wikipedian or the colloquial sense. I am guessing that you disagree, but I am not yet sure exactly why. For instance, do you agree with my characterization of what the three citations say?

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not claiming that there is no link at all; only that the article at present gives an impression that (1) is in fact rather misleading and (2) is not well supported by the cited sources, even if we stipulate that RSes are infallible unless explicitly contradicted by other RSes.

Maybe I should make a more pointed observation. It cannot possibly be true that neoreaction first got started on Less Wrong, because Less Wrong didn't exist until 2009 and, e.g., Moldbug's "Unqualified Reservations", which was neoreactionary from its beginning, was started in 2007. (It could possibly be true that neoreaction got started in the comments of Overcoming Bias, though I am not aware of RSes making that specific claim.) The article's current claim, to be precise, is not quite that neoreaction got started on LW but that the neoreactionary community did, but that seems to be clearly false too because "Unqualified Reservations" had comments from the beginning.

I think the rest of the sentence in question is also misleading; it's probably true (and certainly claimed by the cited source) that some neoreactionaries have been attracted to LW by discussion of topics like eugenics and evo-psych (though ... I did a bit of looking for examples and again didn't find many, but of course that could be because they've been banned and their comments removed, or because I'm bad at recognizing neoreactionaries) but if so I don't think it's part of how "the neoreactionary community first grew". Again, if you replace "Less Wrong" with "Overcoming Bias" this becomes more credible, though whether it's true is another question, and the cited source doesn't support the (possibly true) OB version of the claim, not the (demonstrably false, if taken as explaining the foregoing text about how the NRx community "first grew") LW version.

Gareth McCaughan (talk) 21:58, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The criticism of the current text makes sense to me, defined narrowly. It seems like the statement "The neoreactionary movement first grew on LessWrong..." is not fully supported by current sourcing. This could probably be fixed by modest rephrasing, and I'll think about how to do that. Jlevi (talk) 16:21, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Reasons for why basilisk discussion was banned

(Conflict of interest disclaimer: I am the current head developer for the new version of LessWrong. I almost certainly should not make any edits here because of conflict of interest, but I figured I could provide some pointers for improving the article since I know a lot about the site and its history. Please let me know if this violates site policy or anything like that.)

The current article says: "Discussion of Roko's basilisk was banned on LessWrong for several years because it reportedly caused some readers to have a nervous breakdown."

It then links to three sources, only one of which mentions the ban, in the sentence "but rumor has it that the discussion thread was deemed a danger to susceptible minds and exorcised from the blog after a reader had a nervous breakdown". I don't know precisely the rules for what is necessary to have a claim like that in the article, but given that the source literally says "rumor has it", the current claim seems misleading and it seems better to remove it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Habryka (talk • contribs) 20:29, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

That seems like a fair criticism of the language in the article. Would you happen to have any third-party reliable sources talking about this ban in more detail than the existing sources mentioned in the article? That would really help editors change the language and also provide more accurate information in the article that better reflects the facts around this. --Btcgeek (talk) 21:00, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

This article on the LessWrong wiki links to a variety of external sources, and uses the summary "Less Wrong's founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, banned discussion of Roko's basilisk on the blog for several years as part of a general site policy against spreading potential information hazards.". Obviously the wiki isn't itself a third-party reliable source, though Yudkowsky's original Reddit comment might be? I don't fully grok the policies around primary vs. secondary sources (I know that generally secondary sources are preferable but don't know how they the tradeoff works in cases like this). In this case using a direct quotation from the LessWrong wiki or from Eliezer seems like a reasonable choice, though again I really want to leave any decisions here up to impartial editors. --Habryka (talk) 05:51, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Ok, it's been a while since this thread happened, and I will likely make a change to the article within the next week or so to move forward, since there seemed to be mostly agreement by Btcgeek. Though please feel free to revert or let me know if I should do something else. Again I am very happy to recuse myself here due to my very obvious COI, but do care about the article being accurate and high-quality and want to contribute to that. Habryka (talk) 02:42, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

That's a weird response to a failure to provide RSes. The Slate article referenced here already says "Yudkowsky said that Roko had already given nightmares to several LessWrong users and had brought them to the point of breakdown." - David Gerard (talk) 13:19, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding my intention. I am not trying to remove the whole section on Roko's Basilisk. I am only talking about the specific claim "Discussion of Roko's basilisk was banned on LessWrong for several years because it reportedly caused some readers to have a nervous breakdown", which as far I can tell is wrong, and the relevant claim is prefixed in the article from which it is sourced with "rumor has it", which should presumably exclude it from being quoted as fact on this Wikipedia page. I agree that the Slate article says that Yudkowsky said that the thought experiment had given nightmares to people, but the article does not make the claim (that I am disputing here) that that was the reason for the ban. And even taking that into account, "having nightmares" is importantly still very different from "nervous breakdown", which is much stronger language. At the moment I am claiming that an existing claim in this article is unsupported by the sources it cites, so removing it (or rewriting it) seems like the right thing to do. Habryka (talk) 00:16, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

The Slate article does indeed say what David says it does. Unless I am badly misunderstanding it, it means specifically that in the LW discussion thread Eliezer claimed that Roko's writing had "already given nightmares to several LessWrong users and had brought them to the point of breakdown"; however, there are archives of that thread in which anyone can check (cf. WP:PRIMARYCARE) that Eliezer did not in fact say that and neither did anyone else. (Roko claimed that one person at SIAI had nightmares. Eliezer said that one reason why such things shouldn't be posted is that they might give people nightmares. One person in comments said they would probably have nightmares. No one said anything about nervous breakdowns.) Three sources are cited at the relevant point in the article. One is the Slate article, discussed above. One is a Business Insider article, which nowhere mentions nightmares, nervous breakdowns, or banning of discussion. The third is an Observer article, which makes a similar claim but qualifies it with "rumour has it" and says "a reader", not "several readers". The fact that an RS says "rumour has it that X" is no justification for claiming X, let alone something stronger than X as here. And the fact an RS says X is no justification for claiming X when the claim is readily, objectively, checkable and turns out to be false. Gareth McCaughan (talk) 22:11, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Some more secondary sources mentioning LessWrong

(Conflict of interest disclaimer: I am the current head developer for the new version of LessWrong. I almost certainly should not make any edits here because of conflict of interest, but I figured I could provide some pointers for improving the article since I know a lot about the site and its history. Please let me know if this violates site policy or anything like that.)

Some other parts of the talk page mention a lack of secondary sources mentioning LessWrong, so I figured I would help provide some more sources that I have come across over the years. Most of them focus on the rationality/cognitive-science/technology content on the site, which is the vast majority of content. This isn't for immediate use, but I figured it could be useful to others in updating the article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/magazine/the-happiness-code.html

This article mentions CFAR, which has its own wiki page and so seems likely good to link to.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/08/change-your-life-ugh-fields

This article mentions a concept that I think originated on the site called "Ugh Fields".

https://theconversation.com/elon-musk-grimes-and-the-philosophical-thought-experiment-that-brought-them-together-96439

There are a lot of articles about Elon Musk and Grimes dating because of Roko's basilisk. No idea whether we want to have it in this article, but it sure has a lot of coverage.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-if-bitcoin-had-first-draft-wei-dais-b-money-was-it/

There is some coverage on LessWrong's early role in Bitcoin (though the source doesn't seem super great). These also often reference Wei Dai, a frequent commenter (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Wei_Dai).

https://paperity.org/p/134608376/what-makes-people-approve-or-condemn-mind-upload-technology-untangling-the-effects-of

Here is a paper with a footnote saying "LessWrong is certainly not the only online community discussing these issues; however, it is an open Internet community with strong transhumanistic leanings and therefore is a window into the community of people who wish to discuss these matters actively"

There are lots of citations of lesswrong in a large variety of papers. Here is another example: https://paperity.org/p/154905934/new-directions-in-the-development-of-neuromarketing-and-behavioral-economics

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8q88xp/center-for-applied-rationality

This article on CFAR also mentions LessWrong

https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-headline-available-1388441228?tesla=y

I am pretty sure this article mentions LessWrong but I have no idea how to access WSJ without paying these days

https://books.google.com/books?id=4z9xDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=lesswrong+community&source=bl&ots=KCmJmDFSWr&sig=ACfU3U17hNz47gMIMo3X8aT5uT0PM8QiZg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjh0KDz0PThAhVKwlQKHVbnAUcQ6AEwKHoECDEQAQ#v=onepage&q=lesswrong&f=false

This book has a bunch of mentions of LessWrong

--Habryka (talk) 07:44, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Section blanking

I've noted the section blanking without discussion on the fringe theories noticeboard, in order to get more eyes on the issue - David Gerard (talk) 16:32, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I think your edit summary (the section is well-cited to Reliable Sources, and is literally one of the things that LessWrong is actually noteworthy for) is basically spot-on. XOR'easter (talk) 19:00, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree that neoreaction section is sourced and seems relevant. If no solid reasons for removal are provided here in the talk page, then it will remain.Ramos1990 (talk) 19:09, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Solid reasons have already been provided in the past and are visible above, here and here. And, as I noted, all of the sources for that section are sourced from Wikipedia. This claim is baseless and has traction solely due to the actions of David Gerard in editing this page over the course of years. --PDVk (talk) 16:33, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

"all of the sources for that section are sourced from Wikipedia" this is a bizarrely false claim - David Gerard (talk) 18:43, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

No, it's self-evident truth. There are no sources for this claim from before this section was added to this Wikipedia page and no information in any of them which was not present here first. You have repeatedly ignored editor consensus in order to protect your personal opinion. PDVk (talk) 19:22, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

You're claiming "editor consensus" to ignore well-cited RSes - which is not a thing that advocates of a fringe view can claim as "consensus" on a talk page - and over on WP:FTN (but not here, curiously) you claim a conspiracy theory. And you've provided no evidence the cited sources are derived from the Wikipedia article or (per your claim on FTN) the RationalWiki article - repeated assertion isn't evidence. And you've provided no evidence the RSes are, ah, factually incorrect - David Gerard (talk) 23:36, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

As I said above: It is fairly easy to check the history of this article and its contents on the publication dates of the sources you are claiming as reliable. That done, it is clear that all the information in those sources was here first. I claim no conspiracy; a "conspiracy" is multiple people, and this has been all you from the very beginning. If it wasn't, I'd be far more reluctant to dispute the claims present here. There is no real connection between LessWrong and Neoreaction besides that LW was willing to debate people who hold extreme fringe viewpoints of all types. PDVk (talk) 16:42, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

You've still provided no evidence the cited sources are derived from the Wikipedia article or (per your claim on FTN) the RationalWiki article - repeated assertion isn't evidence. This suggests you don't have any - David Gerard (talk) 21:23, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

I have supplied the means to check my claim individually, which is *better* than sources. PDVk (talk) 16:07, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

If you want to make a claim, you have to make the claim, not tell someone else to make it for you. Demonstrate the claimed circular sourcing - David Gerard (talk) 15:12, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Entire Roko's basilisk section makes no sense as written (needs rewrite by someone familiar with the material)

Roko's basilisk section makes no sense as written, not a single sentence, no offense to author (needs rewrite by someone familiar with the material) --184.63.190.86 (talk) 01:51, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

The section is more 'what' then 'why'. Roko's basilisk is a complex philosophical argument that rests on many assumptions (besides the philosophical argument assumptions about how AGI gets developed) and there's likely nothing that a paragraph of text can do to explain it in a way that makes sense to someone without prior knowledge. The notability is not in the actual argument but in how people talk about it. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 11:45, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

yeah, it's a tricky one, because a lot of the philosophical argument rests on "in-universe" details, and it's not clear how well the RSes capture those - David Gerard (talk) 18:43, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

For the record (maybe it's been edited since I posted this topic) my meaning was the use of English was simply not intelligible in the existing explanation. This would be insult to whoever wrote it, but if the topic is a little complex that's all the more reason to have a proficient English writer write it up. The linked to articles offer succinct, single paragraph descriptions, that could be simply quoted. I did understand it at the the time, after reading some of the references, but could extract nothing conclusive from the material on this page. If it's philosophical, all the more reason to use unambiguous language. --184.63.190.86 (talk) 03:51, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

POV tag

Hi Eridian314. You recently added the POV tag to this article. Could you explain what is non-neutral about this article and what you think needs to be resolved before removal of the tag? If you are unfamiliar, it may be worth reviewing WP:Neutral point of view. Thanks! Jlevi (talk) 14:58, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi, it was meant for a certian section which seemed to paint it as a perfect community of logicians. Twinkle was just being annoying and added it as a tag on the top of the page. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Eridian314 (talk) 16:16, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Could you elaborate on what you think are the problems with this section? Volteer1 (talk) 16:27, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Undisclosed Self-Citation and Tendentious Editing by David Gerard

COI disclosure: LessWrong is my employer. So I will not edit the page directly, only the talk page, and you should take what I say on the talk page with whatever size grain of salt you think is appropriate. I'll try to provide enough links that everything I say here is trivially easy to verify.

David Gerard is a major contributor and editor of the book Neoreaction: A Basilisk. He describes his contribution to the book here: "I’ve spent the last six months editing a book... I ended up researching, editing, copyediting and helping with the publicity." The other author of that book is Philip Sandifer (who was banned from Wikipedia in 2013). That book was reviewed in Social Epistemology by Adam Riggio. David Gerard then cited the review of his own book as an RS and edit warred over the section. If you scroll up this talk page, you will find him repeatedly defend it as an RS, and defended specific language sourced to the review of his own book. When he got into an edit war over that section with PDVk, he posted about it on the Fringe theories noticeboard and made similar claims there. He did not disclose his relation to the source in any of these places.

David Gerard now has a topic ban on "editing about Scott Siskind, broadly construed". That topic ban arguably applies to this page, as LessWrong is known among other things as a place Scott Siskind did a lot of his writing, Scott Siskind's writing is featured prominently on LessWrong's front page. The self-citation described above is also a similar issue to the behavior the topic ban was give for--he acted as a source for an NYT article, and then removed criticism of that same article. However, whether this page is in-scope for the topic ban has not been ruled on; if Gerard would like to argue that it isn't, that should probably be nailed down on the noticeboard rather than this talk page.

Jimrandomh (talk) 00:42, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Jimrandomh for your comments. Do you have any actionable suggestions for mainspace changes, or is this more of an informational note for future reference and discussion? Jlevi (talk) 19:47, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Jlevi Informational. Decisions about what if anything should be done with the mainspace page, should be left to people who are more neutral than I am. Jimrandomh (talk) 02:08, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I see no evidence of self citing.Slatersteven (talk) 19:54, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

The Riggio source seems to be usable as an independent review and to be credible, —PaleoNeonate – 22:11, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

more effective altruism content

I added some more content about effective altruism and lesswrong, as the two are closely related. It is sourced to the Chivers book. Feel free to critique. 72.209.38.247 (talk) 18:52, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

The Chivers reference looks good to me. Mind adding page numbers? Maybe using Template:Rp like this? Jlevi (talk) 19:11, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

References

I removed the Bostrom reference because 1) It is citing Bostrom himself to say "Bostrom is very important". This kind of intuitively doesn't make sense, and on wikipedia this more formally conflicts with our Wikipedia:Independent sources requirement. Also, 2) Overcoming Bias is probably not a generally reliable source, though it might be a usable primary source in the context of LessWrong. I'd avoid referencing it for facts. Jlevi (talk) 19:14, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm okay with omitting the connection to Bostrom. I was just trying to add context so that when he was mentioned in the EA section, his connection to LessWrong was already clear. There certainly is a connection between OB/LW and Bostrom but I'm not sure how to source it, probably it's in the Chivers book. 72.209.38.247 (talk) 19:30, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't know much about the history. What is the significance of Bostrom meeting with Ord and MacAskill? (edit: and specifically, how does it pertain to LessWrong?) Overall a good section but I feel that could be explained better/expanded upon. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 19:54, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

The quote from the book is

The links between the Rationalists and the Effective Altruists go back pretty much to the beginning. Ord and MacAskill met Nick Bostrom at Oxford in 2003, and Ord says: 'I was heavily influenced by Nick in my work on existential risk. I'm pretty sure [the Effective Altruism movement] wouldn't have had such a strong strand on existential risk if I hadn't been influenced by Nick.' It's not that one inspired the other, says Ord, 'the story is mostly one of mutual influence of people exploring related ideas and gaining from their interactions'.

The significance is that it shows that they don't just happen to have overlapping communities. Some of the people who founded the EA movement were influenced by LW/OB/transhumanist thought. Bostrom is very much a LW/OB figure, he has coauthored work with Yudkowsky and was one of the writers on Overcoming Bias. But, if you think the connection is too tenuous we can just remove those two sentences.

[I'm slightly skeptical of the 2003 date in the quote. It could very well be accurate, but MacAskill would have been 16, and I don't know if he was already at Oxford at that age. Either way, it's a minor detail.] 72.209.38.247 (talk) 20:06, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

I see. Bostrom's relation to LessWrong would probably need to be explained (his work on Overcoming Bias and the fact that LW people talk about him a lot, I guess?), and his influence specifically on Ord/MacAskill also touched upon. I would say, however, that the two degrees of separation in the connection LessWrong --> Bostrom --> EA is tenuous unless the book (or some other source) specifically makes that connection. Is there more in that chapter of the book specifically talking about LW? As well, now that I think of it, there are probably things to be said about Yudkowsky and EA that could be in this section too. I might go take a look tomorrow at all this. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 20:34, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Bay Area Rationalists

Bay Area Rationalists redirects here, but isn't covered by the article. -- Beland (talk) 23:08, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable redirect. Are you suggesting any particular action or alternate target? Jlevi (talk) 20:22, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Roko's basilisk article

Someone made a separate Roko's basilisk article. I think the article has too much original research and the citations are not from reliable sources. Most of the references are random YouTube videos. Additionally, the article contains a lot of weird dubious statements like "Roko's Basilisk is extremely difficult to debunk". While there might be enough coverage to establish notability (e.g. the Slate article and some other news articles), the article does not do so currently. Anyone have thoughts on this? 72.209.38.247 (talk) 14:35, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

List it on AfD and recommend it become a redirect to this article. If you don't know how to do this, just say and I can do that for you. — Charles Stewart (talk) 07:28, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

It already has been. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 08:23, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

New York Observer quote

The article includes the following quote:

"Despite describing itself as a forum on 'the art of human rationality,' the New York Less Wrong group ... is fixated on a branch of futurism that would seem more at home in a 3D multiplex than a graduate seminar: the dire existential threat—or, with any luck, utopian promise—known as the technological Singularity ... Branding themselves as 'rationalists,' as the Less Wrong crew has done, makes it a lot harder to dismiss them as a 'doomsday cult'."

This seems like a strange quote to use in an impartial article, since by its own admission its author is looking for reasons to dismiss LessWrong users as a "doomsday cult". The multiple ellipses in the quote and choice of parent article also make it look like it was cherry-picked to reflect as poorly as possible on the community in question. Could we replace it with something from a less biased source?

KingSupernova (talk) 20:29, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Roko's basilisk

Just a note, https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk shows a different story for this  AltoStev (talk) 03:50, 16 December 2021 (UTC)