Its been a good minute since the last thread like this, and with the techno-fascist dystopia being unleashed through the Trump administration, it felt like the time was right to bring this back.
Anyways, this is mostly the same idea as before - find books (or articles) that come down upon the superficial TESCREAL version of cool things like a ton of scientific bricks.
Gonna start this thread off with a few random examples I’ve already found:
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The questions ChatGPT shouldn’t answer (Elizabeth Lopatto) - Goes heavily into OpenAI’s non-existent understanding of ethics, with a paragraph noting AI’s links to LessWrong and effective altruism. (EDIT: Originally said “non-existent understanding of physics” - thanks to @blakestacey for catching that)
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The Fake Nerd Boys of Silicon Valley (Lyta Gold) - A deep dive into Silicon Valley’s fundamental misunderstanding of sci-fi. Not directly about TESCREAL, but still works wonders against it IMO.
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“Main character syndrome” (Anna Gotlib) - Whilst primarily a critique of the titular phenomenon, it does also use longtermism/effective altruism as an example of such.
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One area where I don’t know of good recommendations is theoretical computer science. I am not sure what to suggest that would accessibly teach topics like algorithmic/Kolmogorov information theory without sliding downhill into “we can automate the scientific method” crankery. Or, perhaps, which teaches the relevant concepts clearly and solidly enough to make it obvious that LW use of them is crankery.
Does this need to be marked NSFW? I think the joke about tagging the more serious posts that way ran its course a while ago, and we haven’t been sticking to it.
think there was a mod note a while ago (@dgerard? I think?) that nsfw was no longer required
I tagged it NSFW because the previous thread was tagged NSFW.
The reanimation of pseudoscience in machine learning and its ethical repercussions (pdf link, open-access) is a wonderful take down of the epistemic abuses widespread in much of ML/AI.
For an exposition of Bayesian probability by people who actually know math, there’s Ten Great Ideas About Chance by Persi Diaconis and Brian Skyrms (Princeton University Press, 2018). And for an interesting slice of the history of the subject, there’s Cheryl Misak’s Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers (Oxford University Press, 2020).
For quantum physics, one recent offering is Barton Zwiebach’s Mastering Quantum Mechanics: Essentials, Theory, and Applications (MIT Press, 2022). I like the writing style and the structure of it, particularly how it revisits the same topics at escalating levels of sophistication. (I’d skip the Elitzur-Vaidman “bomb tester” thought experiment for reasons.)
Another suggestion: Instead of indulging in LW-style Feynman worship, read James Gleick’s biography of him. It does a pretty good job covering the actual science while giving a warts-and-all portrayal of the man.
be like me and read the critique of pure reason and pierre bourdieu’s distinction, you’ll be ready for anything forever
The description of “The questions ChatGPT shouldn’t answer” doesn’t seem to go with the text. Did you mean to link something else?
I didn’t mean to link something else, I just mangled my description. Thanks for catching it.
The Wikibooks book on statistics is surprisingly decent. Hopefully it inspires the reader to acknowledge that there are a lot more things to study apart from Bayes.
