A few thoughts about what we're doing here with this blog and a request for information about what you'd like to see
This post, and more importantly its comment section, is an opportunity to take stock, to think about possibilities for this Substack, my writing and related topics. Please tell me more about what you want to see, what you like, what you hate, what you yearn for as the last stars are winking out before the dawn.
Housekeeping
You can find our Subreddit here.
I regularly write poetry. I generally don’t publish it on its own but put it here, and add to that post over time.
Please share this Substack if you enjoy it, it’s the only way we get traction.
Questions I’m pondering at the moment
Should I compose another book? I’ve written a stack of material since the last one.
If I were to put it on Kindle, would people pay for it? (It would also be available for free via PDF)
What do you want me to write more on? Be as specific or vague as you like.
Is there anything I can do, concretely, to try and help the world in a small way at this moment?
How can I get the left AI pilled?
We are possibly approaching a point at which it will be harder and harder for human writers to hang on given AI, what can I do to try and remain relevant for as long as possible.
700 Subscribers is nice, but surely I can do better. How?
I want to meet people who read my work for many reasons e.g.: to find out why they’d do that. Sheer vanity. Because we share common interests. Do any of you live in Sydney?
I generally find that my favorite stuff- the stuff that I really, desperately want- to be popular often isn’t. I genuinely thought this essay on the Chinese Room, along with its two appendices, was one of the most important things I put together, but it got basically no uptake. At the moment I all but abandon work once it’s published. That’s silly. What’s the alternative?
I’m happy to use the platform I have to publish other people’s work under their name or a pseudonym. Is anyone interested? Pitch something to me if so.
A note on our publishing philosophy: The Philosophy Bear’s Philosophy is better out than in.
You’re almost always more likely to hit more often if you shoot more often. Like everyone else I find it difficult to guess how what I write is going to be received before I send it. In general, then, I take writing to be something of a numbers game. The more I write on, the more likely it is that I’ll write something people get value out of.
This depends on a few things. First of all, it requires me to have faith that you won’t treat what I say here as my definitive, ironclad view on anything. That doesn’t mean what I say here is a mirage, with no connection to who I am or what I believe. It’s more like we’re chatting at a party, it’s all meant earnestly, but it doesn’t have the same deep consideration as a publication. What I say here, I do believe it at the time I publish it, but if I thought about it longer, I might not.
Secondly, it means I expect you’ll work with me in a certain sense. You’ll connect the dots yourself. You’ll approach the essays like you’ve bought a “handyman’s dream” and you may need to tweak the arguments a bit- or at least fill in the details. Ultimately I have a lot of ideas and a broad knowledge base but I’m not that bright. Maybe we can work together though.
Also, it means I want you to work with me in the sense of being able to recognize that not everything I write will appeal to all of my audience and please don’t hold that against me 🥺.
AI pilling the left, what you're up against, and of course I'm generalizing here:
Certain leftists can be kinda conservative, not politically but intellectually. Similar to IT professionals, and there's some overlap, they are automatically biased against the new hotness.
Leftists tend to want to reverse stupidity, evil, and hubris, since corporations and capitalists thought leaders promote AI "optimism", they will want to believe the opposite. They are semi aware of Yudkowsky and can't stand him.
The concept of a worker is fully baked into their ideology, any notion that workers might actually become obsolete tends to be rejected.
Historical materialism is also baked in, same deal with notions that the perceived forces of history could be supplanted.
On the bright side, they are about as ignorant of recent advances as the general populace, the information has been filtered through one of the same sources (the media and various pessimist critiques). I find most people will at least think twice when you tell them the capability they think can't be built was demonstrated two years ago.
Your quest with writing reminds me a lot of my own. I post philosophical or pseudo-philosophical takes on an eclectic range of intellectual topics. And I'll often write something that I think is extremely profound, only to be surprised or disappointed by how widely those posts get shared. If you crack the code, then maybe I can learn from you and improve my process.
As for feedback, here are some of your posts that I enjoyed recently:
https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/gpt-3-is-right-now-already-more-than
https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/miscellaneous-notes
https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/regarding-blake-lemoines-claim-that
https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/why-buying-a-luxury-car-is-disappointing
I think all of your posts have something novel to add to the conversation, and by "the conversation," I mean whatever is the kind of content that I get from Scott, Scott's meetups, or the random gwern post. These four posts in particular, though, congealed into morsels or tangible takeaways that somehow moved the needle in my thought process. I know that's a little vague, but hopefully, that helps.
Part of what strikes me as original about your writing, relative to the rationalist communities, is that you don't seem to share their standard biases or political instincts.