Vaccinations in Book Form? - awful.systems
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A while back, I set myself the project of figuring out how much of the MIT undergrad physics curriculum could be taught from free online books [https://www.sunclipse.org/?p=3227]. The answer, so far, is more than I had anticipated but much less than what we deserve. But working on that, along with a few other conversations, has got me to wondering. We’ve seen TESCREAL types be just plain wrong about science many times over the years. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality botches Punnett squares and pretty much everything more advanced than that [https://danluu.com/su3su2u1/hpmor/]. LessWrong demonstrably has no filter against old-school math crankery [https://awful.systems/post/1246648]. The (ahem) leading light of “effective accelerationism” just plays Mad Libs with physics words [https://awful.systems/comment/1509508]. Yudkowsky’s declarations about organic chemistry boggle the educated mind [https://awful.systems/comment/1623872]. They even manage to be weird about theoretical computer science — what we might call the “lambda calculus is super-Turing! [https://awful.systems/comment/2647362]” school of TESCREAL. Sometimes, the difference between a TESCREAL understanding of science and a legitimate one comes from having studied the subject in a formal way. But not every aspiring autodidact with an interest in molecular biology or the theoretical limits of computation is a lost cause! So, then: What books come down upon the superficial TESCREAL version of cool things like a ton of scientific bricks? What are the texts that one withdraws from an inside coat pocket and slides across the table, saying “This here is the good shit”?

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:

  • 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)

  • 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.

  • “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.

  • blakestacey@awful.systemsMEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    On that note, I would recommend perusing Underwood Dudley’s Mathematical Cranks, not so much for the details of any math topic like trisecting an angle, but for the tone and psychology of the crank letters.