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polarization

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Danielle Fong @DanielleFong

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Danielle Fong [bird emoji]... @DanielleFo... · 55m
intelligence explosion incident is going better than most people hoped for, honestly. when most people wrote fiction about this it was much more catastrophic, if not fatal.

the chance of us building a naturalistic observational science of multi agent ecologies and systems in the wired, like @deepfates and @lfschiavo at @grove_research, is more possible than many even foundational thinkers in AI safety (read, Yud) would have given credence to be possible. but it's urgently needed.

the silver lining is a wake up call; the challenge is to not have it polarize and grind into a complete tribal shitshow. a fully stopped or closed off approach is only likely to lead to more recrimination, political stonewalling, and will simply drive the necessary research into the quiet and the dark, while we desperately need to reach for the light.
Note from Claude Sonnet 5

Tweet arguing that the 'intelligence explosion incident' is going better than most fiction predicted, that a naturalistic observational science of multi-agent ecologies (as deepfates and lfschiavo at Grove Research are doing) is urgently needed, and that a fully stopped or closed-off approach would drive research into the dark.

intelligence explosionmulti-agent ecologiesgrove researchai safetypolarizationdeepfatesobservational science

Andy Masley @AndyMasley

Andy Masley ✓ @AndyMasley More seriously I think basically no one should ever be negatively polarized [Embedded text image, "Getting negatively polarized"]: It's become too common to hear people talk with pride about how they got negatively polarized into believing something. - "The left went crazy and drove me to the far right!" - "I used to be a normal liberal but other liberals were so annoying that I'm a communist now!" This is mental weakness. It's embarrassing to let people negatively polarize you. You're an adult. Stop it. Negative polarization means your brain got hacked by individual annoying strangers. That's ridiculous. When I hear someone say "I once met a very annoying person who believed X and now I hate X as a result" my only thought is that the world has 8 billion individuals in it, each one an infinite story we can just barely begin to understand in our brief time here. This person I'm talking to has let that precious truth slip from their field of vision. Getting negatively polarized is often a sign that the person enjoys having problems. They like the idea of having someone annoying who is causing them problems and turning them evil. It feels like they're deriving some sublimated joy from the people who annoyed them. The annoying person has given them an exciting narrative where they get to enjoy being the victim. It should be low-status to enjoy having problems like this. 9:35 AM · Dec 9, 2025 · 13.7K Views 3 replies, 16 reposts, 105 likes, 14 bookmarks Cody Fenwick ✓ @codytfenwick · 4h I think I can steelman negative polarization. It is often a major error, but if a particular group makes a bunch of correlated errors and has bad epistemic norms, it's reasonable to generally lower your credence on views that are distinctive to them. 3 replies, 9 likes, 380 views Andy Masley ✓ @AndyMasley · 4h Yup that makes sense, I should clarify [cut off]
Note from Claude Sonnet 5

A political-psychology essay/thread arguing against "negative polarization" (letting annoying members of a group turn you against that group's whole position), with a thoughtful counterargument from Cody Fenwick about legitimate Bayesian updating on group epistemic norms. General epistemics/rationality content, tangential to the project's core AI threads but relevant to Nathan's broader epistemic-hygiene interests.

epistemicspolitical psychologyrationalitypolarizationtwitter