I somehow missed this one until now. Apparently it was once mentioned in the comments on the old sneerclub but I don’t think it got a proper post, and I think it deserves one.
As the old adage goes, a libertarian is someone who knows the price of everything, the value of nothing, and the age of consent in every jurisdiction
Feynman had a story about trying to read somebody’s paper before a grand interdisciplinary symposium. As he told it, he couldn’t get through the jargon, until he stopped and tried to translate just one sentence. He landed on a line like, “The individual member of the social community often receives information through visual, symbolic channels.” And after a lot of crossing-out, he reduced that to “People read.”
Yud, who idolizes Feynman above all others:
I also remark that the human equivalent of a utility function, not that we actually have one, often revolves around desires whose frustration produces pain.
Ah. People don’t like to hurt.
tbh I don’t think that’s a good rephrasing by feynman.
I also don’t think yud intended to claim that people don’t like to hurt. I’m pretty sure what he meant is that people have a strong desire not to desire things fruitlessly, one that can outweigh EV considerations. still gibberish unless you have enough rationalist brain poisoning to take the assumptions behind “can outweigh EV considerations” seriously, which I don’t
It’s definitely a bad rephrasing. It’s like trying to simplify E = MC² to “big boom”. Like technically yes, matter can be converted into energy but that loses a lot in the rephrasing. It just sounds like he didn’t understand the subject.
More like “People want things and hurt if they don’t get them. Also, look at me saying things like utility function! Function is math! Math is smart. I am smart! Isn’t that so cool?”
I too wish academics, and those at least pretending, would do away with the rhetorical peacocking. Nobody learns from it and it makes the writing inaccessible. It’s deliberate gatekeeping confused for professional writing.
holy fuck the number of people telling on themselves in that thread
No, he terminally values being attracted to children. He could still assign a strongly negative value to actually having sex with children. Good fantasy, bad reality.
So the said forces of normatively dimensioned magic transformed the second pedophile’s body into that of a little girl, delivered to the first pedophile along with the equivalent of an explanatory placard. Problem solved.
please stop disguising your weird fucking sexual roleplay (at best, but let’s be honest, these weird fuckers need to imagine a world in which pedophilia is morally justified) as intellectual debate
The problem is solved by pairing those who wish to live longer at personal cost to themselves with virtuous pedophiles. The pedophiles get to have consensual intercourse with children capable of giving informed consent, and people willing to get turned into a child and get molested by a pedophile in return for being younger get that.
this one gets worse the longer you think about it! try it! there’s so much wrong!
virtuous pedophiles
That’s it, we’re done, we’ve found the worst band name
it’s incredible how thin the pretense is. “I was just casually fantasizing about a scenario in which it would be justified to attack and molest a child” bruh. what
@sc_griffith @self
-Yudkowsky: “It was a thought experiment!”
-The FBI guy operating the wiretap: “Yeah, mate, sure it was.”
My friend’s father – coincidentally named Feinman, not Feynman - used to say “They always advertise what they haven’t got.”
“Less Wrong”.
It’s gotta be a rule that nothing earns you more clout with internet weirdos than defending pedophiles/ephlehebbleleoflphiles
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“Child sexual abuse is at the same time an appropriate reward for a virtuous person, and an appropriate punishment for an evil person.” — Eliezer Yudkowsky, our best hope for solving ethics
edit: what the fuck is that thought experiment he’s responding to, even. are those terminal morons unquestioningly assuming a harmful and immoral fetish could validly be considered a “terminal value”? jesus christ
The Just World Fallacy is doing a lot of load-bearing duty there
And also some unconscious ideas on what you should do with criminals. But im certain that Eliezer “master of noticing your biasses” Yudkowsky was fully aware of that. Right? Right!?
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It’s worth noting that miricult.com went live about a year after Yudkowsky posted that.
HMM
It seems evil to normalize the term pedophilia by using it to describe attraction to people who have been through puberty.
I knew this thread would attract the fucking weirdos. drink!
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As opposed to normalizing it by talking about it all the god damned time, for example by using it in your thought experiments instead of literally any other criminal compulsion.
I’m sorry to say the only people who care are paedophiles and people who’ve been hoodwinked by paedophiles. Your phrasing compels me to assume you’re the former.
Problem solved
Uggh this is some seriously fucked up creepy shit. I had more to say but I can’t put it into words or joke about this without seeing red. Just gah, I’m gonna go take a shower.
“As always, pedophilia is not the same as ephebophilia.”
That’s correct, but as we all know, people don’t say things that are true just because they are true. Otherwise we would be walking around quoting Wikipedia at random for most of the day.
We actually say things because we want to do something.
Edit: Ok now I actually read what he wrote and it makes no sense
Ok now I actually read what he wrote and it makes no sense
Welcome to Yudkowsky.
Another reminder that he is a libertarian.
Wat
Then entire weirdness of this all aside, the older a person gets the more likely they’ll be seen as attractive by the general population. You don’t suddenly become sexually attractive once you reach the age of consent.
My personal belief is that most pedophiles can be put into two groups:
Those developmentally stunted, who can’t see themselves as adults and therefore lust for people of their own ‘mental age’.
And those who have a thing for power, and having an erection over controlling a minor, guiding them through everything and having full control over them.
There may be a third option - these people who try hard to argue that pedophilia and ephebophilia aren’t the same thing, but I just write them off as idiots.
Yudkowsky is pretty open about being a sexual sadist
@GorillasAreForEating @andrew_bidlaw
Yes, but, having now put that image into our minds, what does that make *you*?
the basilisk
Did you know brent dill is back on twitter?
I did not. Got any details?
Also FWIW I discovered this yesterday: https://archive.ph/SFCwS
No idea if it’s true, but even if so I don’t think it would exonerate him (though it would put Aella in a worse light)
first of us to give in and get an Urbit account clearly gets the best dirt
I made one out of morbid curiosity years ago but this was way before they decided to start crypto grifting for cash, so I’ve got no doubt my blah blah self-sovereign something something decentralized mumble mumble digital property has been liquidated by the king for not paying taxes
but @self, HOT ABYSSES IN YOUR AREA
it is the garbage I crave at a price far too grave for humanity
god, how much does a garbage scow or whatever’s the smallest non-transient address allocation cost these days?
https://x.com/nbouscal/status/1736179370749030729?s=20 Right in the middle of some TPOT dispute
I can reserve a forth option just for him. Imagine a classification of pedoes, and a category being just ‘Yudkowsky’. I feel that many jews sharing the same surename wouldn’t be pleased.
idk, people who are otherwise totally unremarkable seem to be pedos. it really seems more like any other variation in human sexuality except that it’s profoundly harmful
It is a registered anomaly, a disorder, that deserves counseling. It just so seems we don’t hear much from people legitly strugling from it, but from rich people not knowing what to do with their free time besides fucking kids.
@andrew_bidlaw For most people who suffer from paedophilia in the ICD-11 sense (which is a mental health disorder) and undergo years of treatment and therapy while living in terror that they might one day give in to their own instincts and do something unspeakable… it’s not surprising they prefer to not give interviews.
True.