memoir: "something in me boiled over"

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 d615b7a..a956dde 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md
+++ b/content/drafts/if-clarity-seems-like-death-to-them.md
@@ -660,31 +660,15 @@ I put the question to a few friends in July 2020 (Subject: "rubber duck philosop
 
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-[TODO:
- * Yudkowsky made a stray remark about social media causing people to say crazy thing
- * I got enraged, posted a couple Tweets, including a preview of "Unnatural Categories"
+I decided on "Unnatural Categories Are Optimized for Deception" as the title for my advanced categorization thesis. Writing it up was a large undertaking. There were a lot of nuances to address and potential objections to preëmpt, and I felt that I had to cover everything. (A reasonable person who wanted to understand the main ideas wouldn't need so much detail, but I wasn't up against reasonable people who wanted to understand.)
 
-https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1304824253015945216
-> Hypothesis: social media has an effect promoting Terrible Straw Arguments to being used by many actual people. One crazy on Side A makes a bad argument.  Side B subtweets with a refutation and that gets a million views.  So people on Side A hear about it as Side A's argument.
->
-> And the result looks so incredibly surreal. People be going "2 + 3 = 4" and the replies are things like "lol but 4 is a prime number you moron". The entire conversation has been implicitly selected to sound insane to the other side.
+In September 2020, Yudkowsky Tweeted [something about social media incentives prompting people to make insane arguments](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1304824253015945216).
 
+Something in me boiled over. The Tweet was fine in isolation, but I rankled at it in the context of his own incentive-driven insanity remaining unaddressed. I left [a snarky reply](https://twitter.com/zackmdavis/status/1304838486810193921) and [vented on my 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—
-https://twitter.com/zackmdavis/status/1304838346695348224
-
-
-https://twitter.com/zackmdavis/status/1304838486810193921
-> Or, "You're not standing in defense of truth if you insist on a symbol like '2' or '+', brought explicitly into question, being used with some particular meaning." (I'm still very angry at you! This shouldn't be hard to clear up in public!) 1/2
->
-> If not the object-level application on Twitter, at least the abstract philosophy-of-language issue on Less Wrong?! Please!?! I've been working on a more detailed explanation that should be ready within a few weeks. 2/2
 
- * something in my boiled over, and I eventually ended up staying up late writing an angry email
- * this ruins my chances for being a "neutral" bridge between the Vassarites and the Caliphate, but that's OK
- * mostly reproduce below (with a few redactions for either brevity or compliance with privacy norms, but I'm not going to clarify which)
-]
-
-[TODO: "out of patience" email]
+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).
 
 > To: Eliezer Yudkowsky <[redacted]>  
 > Cc: Anna Salamon <[redacted]>  
@@ -797,6 +781,7 @@ I followed it up with another email after I woke up the next morning:
 [TODO: Sep 2020 categories clarification from EY—victory?!
 https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10158853851009228
 _ex cathedra_ statement that gender categories are not an exception to the rule, only 1 year and 8 months after asking for it
+ * this ruins my chances for being a "neutral" bridge between the Vassarites and the Caliphate, but that's OK
 ]
 
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