What's a good name for an anti-TESCREAL nonprofit?
5 days ago by David Gerard to c/sneerclub
I'm in a pile of excellent people opposed to the TESCREALists at this trying time in history. We need a name.
We have a list of possibles, but it's actually hard to pick a nice name that doesn't sound like an EA front group!
An initialism for S.N.E.E.R. probably won't be the sort of thing we're after lol.
What's a name that's (a) nice and polite sounding (b) says at least a bit what it actually is (c) doesn't sound like an EA front group?
Actual altruists.
If you form a band you could be the Death Spirals.
not pitching an alternative because your suggestion is better, but I'm always tickled when I get to use the phrase "Actually Existing", e.g. "Actually Existing Altruists" (see: "actually existing socialism")
poo poo pee pee gang
Society for Egalitarian Technology and Ethical Computation
I think anything with language about advocacy, speaking out, justice, fairness etc. is good because it contrasts with the EA belief that public policy must only be discussed in a totally values neutral way with any personal standpoints optimized out.
Grounded Humanists, perhaps?
Yeah, and to be clear I’m unabashedly a humanist myself, but at this point in time I have to treat “Humanist” in org names as a red flag.
...Justified Luddites?
WressLong?
I feel like so much of the TESCREAL narrative is about a particular kind of line-goes-up futurism that something about an egalitarian or democratic future could help demonstrate where our vision differs and foreground where their ideology is fundamentally authoritarian. The word "democratic" is probably unusable in a US context, regrettably. I'd also like to snipe at the longtermists specifically and emphasize making the future better by solving the problems that are right in front of us now rather then ignoring them and hoping they go away.
Working Today for a Free and Equal Tomorrow or something?
This seems a good time to remember Dale Carrico, the Berkeley rhetorician and Hannah Arendt fan who was opposing what he dubbed "superlative" futurological discourse, as long ago as 2009.
I'd never heard of him but this curriculum for a class about futurology seems great and pointed.
Both ranting and raving will be involved.
Hmm....how about R.A.V.I.N.G: Rise Against Voracious IT Nazi Ghouls?
Pile Of Opposed People!
The thread seems to be dropping off, but this is gold.
Association Opposing Greed and Idiocy.
Doesn't lend itself to snickering. Gets the point across. Hard to turn into "well actually the real greed is sharing".
Gradient clippers. In machine learning, learning too quickly can cause a model to "explode," and the technique to prevent it from moving too quickly is called gradient clipping. So, if you apply that to technology, gradient clippers would be opposed to accelerationism.
Stable Technology Initiative! Uhhh wait that's not right...
Seriously though, something emphasizing stability would probably be quite effective, if overemphasizing the bad guys' shitty software products in contrast to their destructive social attitudes. Stable Technology Society, Society for Stable Technology, Stable and Equitable Technology Society...
Software quality is already generally pretty terrible; heavyweight, buggy software is crammed into more places than it really needs to be; and people are going to have even worse experiences with shoddy technology in the years ahead. Emphasizing stable technology that just works and continues to do its job for years, or even a human lifetime, is pretty hard for the "move-fast-and-break-things" crowd to assail, especially as the bill for living in their world continues to come due.
I have a question about the nature of this "anti-TESCREALism". "TESCREALism" has an intellectual content that includes things like life extension, philanthropic utilitarianism, and concern with the long-term future and the rise of superhuman AI. Then there's a host of things that have no inherent connection to that intellectual content, like the sex parties, belief in racial IQ differences, consorting with tech billionaires, etc. Where would this nonprofit's opposition be focused?
@Mitchell_Porter The point here is that TESCREAL is a nascent syncretistic religion, like early Christianity during the first centuries CE (before the first Council of Nicaea). In modern terms, it's a cult or exhibits cult-like traits. And cults generally attract narcissistic psychopaths and grifters who use them for self-enrichment and sex at the expense of the more normal (gullible) followers.
The purpose of a system is what it does. Watch what TESCREAL does. And what its boosters do with it.
Do you have any experience of seeing vulnerable idealists destroyed, not by manipulative gurus, but by the indifference and incomprehension of ordinary society? The latter is closer to what I've seen happen to "TESCREAL believers". But as I always say, I have been remote from the center of things, if the center is identified by money and media attention. Perhaps at that center it's more as you say.
@awful.systems
Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
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@awful.systems
Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
See our twin at Reddit
go to feed...
Nowtermism
Or otherwise something drawing attention to the problems that exist in the world today, as I feel that’s the big antithesis to everything TESCREALists worry about (besides the racism, of course).
save