[ifyoubuildit]

As someone who doesn't know what subculture you're talking about, parent's argument sounds reasonable to me. There's even an old saying that everyone has probably heard - "Why don't you put your money where your mouth is." Is that some kind of fringe thing now?

[tivert]

> As someone who doesn't know what subculture you're talking about...

Bets like the one discussed here are a rhetorical tic of the "rationalist" community.

> ...parent's argument sounds reasonable to me.

Kinda sorta. It's just a weird ritual of theirs to demonstrate commitment, and they often have a really hard time understanding that their weird rituals and mores are not universal and they can't reasonably go around expecting random people on the internet to follow them. Challenging someone to a bet like this comes off exactly as a challenge to prove your commitment by putting a bucket on your head and banging it with a stick for an hour, just because that's some weird thing the challenger's friends do among themselves.

[comp_throw7]

This is an argument about social perception. Once you get over the fact that some community on the internet does this thing, and you think that community is weird (and therefore the thing itself is also weird), you may observe that all human actions are implicit bets on various beliefs. Explicitly wagering money is just a special case of making certain narrow beliefs much more legible.

I agree that in practice, it's pretty likely that the author of the piece refuses to bet at least in part because betting substantial sums of money on outcomes that are non-central subjects of wagers (i.e. not an explicit game of chance, sports, politics, etc) is socially unusual. But I also think that if he was very confident he'd be happy to take the money.

[ifyoubuildit]

You're using the word weird a lot, but I don't see what's so weird about the concept of "put your money where your mouth is" (or "put up or shutup", or "wanna bet?", or other variations on the theme).

The bucket on head example certainly is weird. I just don't see how that's related. The logic I'm seeing is 1) the "rationalist" community does x, 2) I don't like the rationalist community, 3) so x is stupid. Is there more to it?

[tivert]

> You're using the word weird a lot, but I don't see what's so weird about the concept of "put your money where your mouth is" (or "put up or shutup", or "wanna bet?", or other variations on the theme).

Let me explain it to you slowly and clearly: neither challenging people to bets nor banging a bucket on your head are things typically asked of people to prove their commitment to a statement, hence it's weird to ask someone to do them. They might common in some weird subculture, but it is additionally weird to go up to someone outside of that subculture and make weird subcultural demands.

Also the examples you gave are literally rude, for the most part, and don't actually mean what you seem to think they mean (if you want a source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/put%20up%20or%20s...).

> The logic I'm seeing is 1) the "rationalist" community does x, 2) I don't like the rationalist community, 3) so x is stupid. Is there more to it?

You see wrong.

[ifyoubuildit]

> neither challenging people to bets nor banging a bucket on your head are things typically asked of people to prove their commitment to a statement, hence it's weird to ask someone to do them.

We apparently just live in different universes. In my universe, one of those things is completely unremarkable. I must be a part of some weird subculture, TIL.

> Also the examples you gave are literally rude, for the most part, and don't actually mean what you seem to think they mean

Like most things, they can be rude, or they can be completely benign, depending on the context and delivery. I don't see anything conflicting in the definition you linked, but as you pointed out, I see wrong, so that's probably why.

[x0x0]

Ed sure looks like a PR person (ie paid liar, and his chosen career) who spotted an anti-tech market opportunity and is now confidently and loudly asserting a bunch of opinions. See, eg, lots of people on substack. People will happily pay to hear their beliefs echoed to them.

Having even minor amounts of skin in the game would make it a lot more likely he's sharing, well, actual beliefs not opportunistic opinions.

I also have never read any rationalist whatever you're complaining about and you're clearly attempting to discredit people who think Ed is probably just venal. I think you're the one who needs to touch grass here and spend less time on Twitter/x/threads/whatever has you so convinced everyone else is wasting time on them.