This weekend’s LessWrong event is a debate! Robin Hanson and Zvi Mowshowitz will be debating blackmail this coming Sunday. The Zoom link is here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85013937335. (Facebook event.) We will release a recording and a transcript afterwards. There’ll be a Q&A (live on Zoom). See you there :) Background Robin’s initial post on the subject is Checkmate on Blackmail. Zvi’s initial post on the subject is Blackmail (epistemic status: surprisingly controversial). Paul Christiano and Tyler Cowen both wrote posts too, Checkmate on Blackmail? and Why should blackmail be illegal? respectively. There’s also a blackmail tag for various related posts (someone should write a description and add any missing posts).
Congrats to Robin. He represented his side well. Looks like the crowd shifted substantially towards him after the debate. I do not think I did as good a job, and in particular did not think to prepare concrete examples where legal blackmail would do harm, and had trouble thinking of good ones in the moment. Of course, now, it’s easy to think of a list. Part of that, ironically, is that I was afraid of my statements in a public form implicitly endorsing or admitting to something that could be used against me later.
I have created this Google Calendar link if anyone wants to quickly setup a reminder: https://calendar.google.com/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=MjM5cnQ3cmUwcW5lNXIxM3Nva2pqYTI4MXUgZGtrcXJnamwyM2R1aG8wcjIxZ3ZudWRuMjhAZw&tmsrc=dkkqrgjl23duho0r21gvnudn28%40group.calendar.google.com
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I recently got an email from JuliaCon, they had attached an ics file that contained all the events and I could just open it and my calendar would automatically import them and send me notifications. That’s a good practice for event organizers.
Looks like the meeting got cut off by the host?
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Alas, I’m going to call it ‘technical failure’. The event is now over, apologies for the sudden end, but solid conversation from both, I learned a bunch.
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I had the same question. Thanks for clarifying.
Was the event recorded? Any chance to watch the record?
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There’ll be a transcript up this week.
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Any progress with a transcript?
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This week I’m on team retreat. Will get to the transcript next week.
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Hi Ben. Are you still planning to post a transcript sometime?
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Yes, I published it that week! Here’s the highlights post, that links to the transcript.
It seems pretty unlikely that this debate will have anything novel to add. Zvi is obviously in the right, and Robin hasn’t displayed the ability to generate new ideas in five years.