another twist of the LW hilarity kaleidoscope
I suggested that there was something to be gained from staying in school, reading great works of literature and philosophy, and arguing about ideas with people who have different views. After all, this had been the education of Peter Thiel. In “The Diversity Myth,” he and Sacks wrote, “The antidote to the multiculture is civilization.” I didn’t disagree. Wasn’t the world of libertarian entrepreneurs one more self-enclosed cell of identity politics?
Around the table, the response was swift and negative. Yudkowsky reported that he was having a “visceral reaction” to what I’d said about great books.
(George Packer, “No Death, No Taxes: The libertarian futurism of a Silicon Valley billionaire”)
I have something of the same visceral reaction myself – but in Yudkowsky’s case I actually do think he might do well to crack open some Dostoyevsky once in a while. After all, he professes an interest in saving the world, and attracting to the most capable people in the world to his cause. Surely he would best be able to do so if he had a command of the cultural references that traditionally signify intellectual and moral weight?
Instead, when he deploys cultural references, they tend to be a little more like …
- this meditation upon the Problem of Catgirl Harems
- this post, in which he refers vaguely to “Japanese fiction,” by which he appears to mean “anime”
- his famous Harry Potter fanfic
- his many fanfic recs – he reads a huge amount of fanfic and his taste skews exclusively towards poorly written stories about cartoonish superheros slinging magic powers at each other for hundreds of monotonous pages (this is a typically unreadable example)
- his downright chilling comparison of people who don’t share his values to non-player characters in a video game: “And remember: To be a PC, you’ve got to involve yourself in the Plot of the Story. Which from the standpoint of a hundred million years from now, is much more likely to involve the creation of Artificial Intelligence or the next great advance in human rationality (e.g. Science) than… than all that other stuff. Sometimes I don’t really understand why so few people try to get involved in the Plot.”
- and of course:
This is all significant for two reasons. First, it indicates that his worldview has been shaped by bad fiction. He tries to pass off these references as jokes or amusing diversions from the substance of his writing, but if you read enough you’ll eventually notice that he makes these “jokes” constantly and persistently, and often in lieu of substance, and you’ll realize the simplest explanation is that really means them.
Second, it indicates that he’s either unable or unwilling to realize how poorly he’s poised to reach the vast majority of humanity. He must know that most people in existence would find these persistent references incomprehensible, repulsive or both. (What the fuck is a “catgirl”?) So he must simply think that only the people who get the references are worth reaching. That sounds absurd, and it is. But it’s an understandable attitude for someone who never went to high school or college, started using the internet early on, and indeed essentially socialized himself through the internet. Such a person is likely to have never encountered many smart people who are not stereotypical nerds, because the majority of heavy internet users are stereotypical nerds. Such a person could actually come to the absurd conclusion that people who aren’t stereotypical nerds aren’t worth reaching, and close off their supposedly world-changing gospel from anyone who doesn’t fit that description.
If they don’t know what My Little Pony is, how crucial could they be to the future of humanity, really?
