memoir: "trying to trick me" footnote, clarify cause of "The Incentives" snit

diff --git a/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md b/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md
index 3375a46..93e86a9 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md
+++ b/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md
@@ -129,7 +129,7 @@ Math and Wellness Month ended up being mostly a failure: the only math I ended u
 
 In June 2019, I made [a linkpost on _Less Wrong_](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5nH5Qtax9ae8CQjZ9/tal-yarkoni-no-it-s-not-the-incentives-it-s-you) to Tal Yarkoni's ["No, It's Not The Incentives—It's you"](https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2018/10/02/no-its-not-the-incentives-its-you/), about how professional scientists should stop using career incentives as an excuse for doing poor science. It generated a lot of discussion.
 
-In an email (Subject: "LessWrong.com is dead to me"), Jessica identified the thread as her last straw:
+In an email (Subject: "LessWrong.com is dead to me"), Jessica identified _Less Wrong_ moderator [Ray Arnold's comments](https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/5nH5Qtax9ae8CQjZ9/no-it-s-not-the-incentives-it-s-you/comment/vPj9E9iqXjnNdyhob) as her last straw:
 
 > LessWrong.com is a place where, if the value of truth conflicts with the value of protecting elites' feelings and covering their asses, the second value will win.
 >
@@ -739,7 +739,9 @@ I decided on "Unnatural Categories Are Optimized for Deception" as the title for
 
 In September 2020, Yudkowsky Tweeted [something about social media incentives prompting people to make nonsense arguments](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1304824253015945216), and something in me boiled over. The Tweet was fine in isolation, but I rankled at it given the absurdly disproprotionate efforts I was undertaking to unwind his incentive-driven nonsense. I left [a pleading, snarky reply](https://twitter.com/zackmdavis/status/1304838486810193921) and [vented on my own timeline](https://twitter.com/zackmdavis/status/1304838346695348224) (with preview images from the draft of "Unnatural Categories Are Optimized for Deception"):
 
-> Who would have thought getting @ESYudkowsky's robot cult to stop trying to trick me into cutting my dick off (independently of the empirical facts determining whether or not I should cut my dick off) would involve so much math?? OK, I guess the math part isn't surprising, but—
+> Who would have thought getting @ESYudkowsky's robot cult to stop trying to trick me into cutting my dick off (independently of the empirical facts determining whether or not I should cut my dick off) would involve so much math?? OK, I guess the math part isn't surprising, but—[^trying-to-trick-me]
+
+[^trying-to-trick-me]: I anticipate that some readers might object to the "trying to trick me into cutting my dick off" characterization. But as [Ben had pointed out earlier](/2023/Jul/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning/#physical-injuries), we have strong reason to believe that an information environment of ubiquitous propaganda was creating medical transitions on the margin. I think it made sense for me to use emphatic language to highlight what was actually at stake here!
 
 My rage-boil continued into staying up late writing him an angry email, which I mostly reproduce below (with a few redactions for either brevity or compliance with privacy norms, but I'm not going to clarify which).
 

diff --git a/notes/memoir-sections.md b/notes/memoir-sections.md
index c056546..55749b5 100644 (file)
--- a/notes/memoir-sections.md
+++ b/notes/memoir-sections.md
@@ -22,14 +22,14 @@ pt. 3 edit tier—
 ✓ mention "Darkest Timeline" and Skyrms somewhere
 
 pt. 3 content fills—
-_ the skeptical family friend's view
-_ in a footnote, defend the "cutting my dick off" rhetorical flourish
+✓ the skeptical family friend's view
+✓ in a footnote, defend the "cutting my dick off" rhetorical flourish
+_ confusing people and ourselves about what the exact crime is
 _ footnote explaining quibbles on clarification
-_ "Not the Incentives"—rewrite given that I'm not shielding Ray
-_ I still mostly feel like being more detailed than "fraud"; later thoughts on jump to evaluation, translating between different groups' language
 _ FTX validated Ben's view of EA!!
 
 pt. 3 minor—
+✓ "Not the Incentives"—rewrite given that I'm not shielding Ray
 _ Ben on "locally coherent coordination": use direct quotes for Ben's language—maybe rewrite in my own language (footnote?) as an understanding test
 _ do I have a better identifier than "Vassarite"?
 _ maybe I do want to fill in a few more details about the Sasha disaster, conditional on what I end up writing regarding Scott's prosecution?—and conditional on my separate retro email—also the Zolpidem thing