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It’s an understandable concern. I subscribe more to the insight from BoI chapter 10. Open societies inadvertently give their enemies more access than closed ones, but they also gain so much more knowledge and strength because of their openness that they can deal with their enemies better than if they were closed.

(I went back and forth on whether to label this as a criticism. I decided to do so but I want to be clear that it doesn’t mean I’m trying to tell you how to live your life.)

Superseded by #2524.

As a reminder, at some point we will need to do some housekeeping because any criticisms of #2108 are probably also going to be criticisms of #2109 and we want an intact criticism chain.

I’m marking this as a criticism so we don’t forget. And when we’re done with the housekeeping, we can say so in a counter-criticism to ‘check off’ that todo item.

Sorry but I don’t see how that solves the bad-actor problem. Bad actors would still be able to draw out the discussion to avoid paying, wouldn’t they?

Idea: when you create a bounty, you set the amount you’re willing to pay per criticism and a ceiling for the total you’re willing to spend (no. of crits * amount per crit).

Your card is authorized for twice the ceiling. In addition, there’s a button to report abuse. If you’re a good citizen, you’ll be charged the ceiling, at most. But if you’re found to submit arbitrary criticisms to avoid paying, the bounty stops early and your card is charged the full authorization.

If you submit a criticism, you won’t want to wait indefinitely to get paid just because others are keeping the discussion going in a different branch.

I suppose that would make it a bit harder for bad actors because they’d need to monitor multiple deadlines, but they could still submit arbitrary counter-criticisms just in time to avoid paying. Or is there something I’m missing?

… I am getting an error when I try to edit #2479…

Editing ideas should be fixed now. (You won’t need to edit this one, though, since I’ve done the requisite housekeeping.)

That is simply an extension of the fact that solutions to problems don’t come reliably.

Superseded by #2501.

As much as I dislike LLMs, I’m thinking of using them to show summaries of discussions at the top of the page. Summaries would reflect ideas without pending criticisms.

Some people – and I don’t know if this includes you or not – are overly worried about getting embarrassed or making silly mistakes.

There are some exceptions where reputation needs to be taken very seriously, but I think the general view to take in this matter is that no one cares. Think of the deepest embarrassment you’ve ever felt – and then try to replace that feeling with how others felt about your situation.

Like, if you’re on stage playing the guitar in front of hundreds of people, and you hit the wrong note, you may feel embarrassed. But many people didn’t even notice. And those who did probably didn’t care nearly as much about the mistake as you did.

Then what does somebody do who wants to react to an idea as a whole? Do they react to the last paragraph?

For reactions to paragraphs, at least you could tell if the content someone reacted to has changed, and only then remove the reaction.

But presumably, the same is true for reactions to ideas as a whole. Reactions would have to be removed for revisions.

There’s value in others being able to react as well. Maybe an idea affects them in some way or they want to voice support.

There’s value in reacting to top-level ideas, too.

One feature I have planned is private discussions that only you and people you invite can see.

The word ‘therefore’ in this context means that lack of certainty is the reason error correction is the means by which knowledge is created. I’m not sure that’s the reason.

And it’s not actually clear whether ‘therefore’ refers to the part “This means that we can't be certain about anything” or to “all knowledge contains errors.”

You can avoid all of these issues by simply removing the word ‘therefore’. Simpler.

Fixed as of recently. Emails now quote the parent idea.

All of my criticisms notwithstanding, I actually agree with your conclusion that it may be possible in principle for life to spread into space. Like you, I see why that would be hard but not why it would be impossible.

(To anyone inclined to criticize this idea: consider criticizing #2366 instead so the criticism chain remains intact – unless there’s specifically something about my idea here as distinct from Erik’s that you want to criticize.)

Their mode of replication differs, as each new guess in genes must be neutral or positive for the vehicle. [Emphasis added.]

I share the gene’s-eye view advocated by Dawkins: changes are to be judged by how they affect the replicator’s ability to spread through the population, not by how they affect the individual organism (or “vehicle”, as you called it).

This difference matters because sometimes changes hurt an individual organism while increasing a replicator’s ability to spread. If a replicator that reduces its organism’s lifespan is better able to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals, then that’s what it will do.

Their mode of replication differs, as each new guess in genes must be neutral or positive for the vehicle.

I think the word ‘as’ is strictly speaking false here. As in: even if it were true that each genetic change must be neutral or positive, that wouldn’t be the reason genes and memes have different modes of replication.

Assuming by ‘mode’ you mean ‘mechanism’, the difference is that genes don’t need to be expressed to be replicated whereas memes do. The reason for this difference is that one person has no direct visibility into other people’s brains to copy memes ‘wholesale’ – they can only make guesses based on the behavior they see. Whereas the enzymes involved in the replication of DNA do get to direct access to the entire DNA molecule.

[E]ach new guess in genes must be neutral or positive for the vehicle.

I don’t think that’s true. I remember Deutsch saying something like this but I think he’s confused about evolution.

Not every genetic change that isn’t an improvement or neutral is automatically deleterious. A replicator could go through a series of changes that temporarily reduce its ability to spread through the population until it undergoes another change that raises that ability above the original level.

To reason, within any epistemology, means to follow and apply that epistemology.

Some epistemologies are defined too poorly to be able to tell when you’re following or straying from it.