New comment policy
Update (July 24): Remember the quest that Adam Yedidia and I started in 2016, to find the smallest n such that the value of the nth Busy Beaver number can be proven independent of the axioms of ZF set theory? We managed to show that BB(8000) was independent. This was later improved to BB(745) by Stefan O’Rear and Johannes Riebel. Well, today Rohan Ridenour writes to tell me that he’s achieved a further improvement to BB(643). Awesome!
With yesterday’s My Prayer, for the first time I can remember in two decades of blogging, I put up a new post with the comments section completely turned off. I did so because I knew my nerves couldn’t handle a triumphant interrogation from Trumpist commenters about whether, in the wake of their Messiah’s (near-)blood sacrifice on behalf of the Nation, I’d at last acquiesce to the dissolution of America’s constitutional republic and its replacement by the dawning order: one where all elections are fraudulent unless the MAGA candidate wins, and where anything the leader does (including, e.g., jailing his opponents) is automatically immune from prosecution. I couldn’t handle it, but at the same time, and in stark contrast to the many who attack from my left, I also didn’t care what they thought of me.
With hindsight, turning off comments yesterday might be the single best moderation decision I ever made. I still got feedback on what I’d written, on Facebook and by email and text message and in person. But this more filtered feedback was … thoughtful. Incredibly, it lowered the stress that I was feeling rather than raising it even higher.
For context, I should explain that over the past couple years, one or more trolls have developed a particularly vicious strategy against me. Below my every blog post, even the most anodyne, a “new” pseudonymous commenter shows up to question me about the post topic, in what initially looks like a curious, good-faith way. So I engage, because I’m Scott Aaronson and that’s what I do; that’s a large part of the value I can offer the world.
Then, only once a conversation is underway does the troll gradually ratchet up the level of crazy, invariably ending at some place tailor-made to distress me (for example: vaccines are poisonous, death to Jews and Israel, I don’t understand basic quantum mechanics or computer science, I’m a misogynist monster, my childhood bullies were justified and right). Of course, as soon as I’ve confirmed the pattern, I send further comments straight to the trash. But the troll then follows up with many emails taunting me for not engaging further, packed with farcical accusations and misreadings for me to rebut and other bait.
Basically, I’m now consistently subjected to denial-of-service attacks against my open approach to the world. Or perhaps I’ve simply been schooled in why most people with audiences of thousands or more don’t maintain comment sections where, by default, they answer everyone! And yet it’s become painfully clear that, as long as I maintain a quasi-open comment section, I’ll feel guilty if I don’t answer everyone.
So without further ado, I hereby announce my new comment policy. Henceforth all comments to Shtetl-Optimized will be treated, by default, as personal missives to me—with no expectation either that they’ll appear on the blog or that I’ll reply to them.
At my leisure and discretion, and in consultation with the Shtetl-Optimized Committee of Guardians, I’ll put on the blog a curated selection of comments that I judge to be particularly interesting or to move the topic forward, and I’ll do my best to answer those. But it will be more like Letters to the Editor. Anyone who feels unjustly censored is welcome to the rest of the Internet.
The new policy starts now, in the comment section of this post. To the many who’ve asked me for this over the years, you’re welcome!
Follow
Comment #1 July 15th, 2024 at 5:04 pm
I apologise on behalf of my fellow humans, and I think this is an excellent policy. As a decades-old internet citizen, I rarely read and pretty much never engage in the troll bait, err, comments sections.
However, I very much appreciate your viewpoint on the matter and commend you for it.
Thanks very much for your delightful blog. I hope you are able to retain the level of delight we readers receive from it through this new policy.
Best wishes and luck!
Comment #2 July 15th, 2024 at 5:26 pm
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i think this decision is understandable—but i cannot help feeling sorry for the loss of a particularly poignant town square on the internet, that probably now has to go elsewhere
although, i suspect that the academic etc. discussions will still be preserved because your moderation won’t be that extreme on non-political topics. so, maybe it’s not all bad
Comment #3 July 15th, 2024 at 6:18 pm
Scott, I’ve followed your work from a distance for years, even though much of the technical content is beyond my grasp. Your openness to engaging with readers has always been admirable, particularly in your thoughtful responses to comments on topics like Robin Hanson’s theory about aliens.
As someone who doesn’t use social media (I’m of an older generation), I’ve appreciated the intellectual discourse you’ve fostered here. While I understand the need for this change given the challenges you’ve faced, I hope you’ll continue to find ways to maintain some level of meaningful interaction with your readers.
Your sensitivity and willingness to engage have been strengths, allowing for rich discussions. However, I can see how these qualities also make you vulnerable to the kind of targeted trolling you’ve described. This new policy seems like a reasonable compromise to protect your well-being while still allowing for curated interactions.
Thank you for your transparency about this decision. It’s a reminder of the ongoing challenges in maintaining thoughtful online spaces. I look forward to continuing to learn from your posts and the selected comments you choose to share.
Comment #4 July 15th, 2024 at 6:31 pm
I’m sorry to hear it came to that, but… it’s probably a wise decision.
Selfishly, I look forward to reading a less-trolly comment section. 🙂
Comment #5 July 15th, 2024 at 7:28 pm
For me the “don’t feed the troll” advice is easy to see the logic of, but hard to follow. It’s like “don’t scratch an itch”. Scratching feels good for an instant, but may scar you forever. So your new policy to going to deny me some scratch material, but will be better for me in the long run. Thank you.
Comment #6 July 15th, 2024 at 7:39 pm
I hope your new comments policy gives you much more peace of mind!
I did have a thought on your “zombie misconception” post that I think may have some interest (but don’t feel any need to publish it). It is regarding your example of the function involving God. For some background, like you I’m a Platonist about the existence of the natural numbers. I’m also a realist about the existence of God (in that I believe in Him existing in reality). So I accept that your function really is computable (and I believe it is the constant 1 function). But this got me thinking about ways in which your function about God might not actually be “computable” in the usual sense. I had a couple mundane thoughts, but one really interesting thought experiment pitting my realism against my Platonism. I hope you enjoy it!
Sam the scientist-mathematician was working in the lab one day, when she discovered a way to create baby universes. These universes could be programmed like Turing machines. They would run the program forever in their own space-time, but from our point of view they would immediately collapse. Thus, there was no way we could interact with these creations. Nevertheless, Sam thought this was interesting, and so decided to create a few universes. Interestingly, as each baby universe ended, it emitted either a red or a green flash of light. After some experimentation, Sam realized that the color of the light corresponded to whether or not the Turing machine halted/stopped (red) or ran forever (green).
Sam had just invented a way to access an oracle for the halting problem!
More experimentation followed. The Riemann hypothesis was decided (in the positive) and the Collatz conjecture too. With a bit more effort, she used the oracles to find a proof in PA of RH (which was verified by computer). The winners for BB(6) and BB(7) were found. There was no doubt that these baby universes were going to revolutionize math and science.
Sam just had one more experiment to run before going live with this information. She checked that Con(PA) was true–it was. Then she checked that Con(PA+Con(PA)) was true–it was. Just for fun she checked whether this process, iterated BB(100) times was true. It *wasn’t*. After some experimentation, she discovered that Con(PA+Con(PA+Con(PA))) was actually false. But unlike for RH, the smallest number of lines in a disproof was bigger than BB(7). There was no conventional way to verify the inconsistency.
That night she had restless sleep, until she had a dream where an angel visited her. The angel informed her that her baby universes were running their Turing program on what she might call a nonstandard model of PA. There was no problem with her work. The solution to the conundrum was simply that there really was no “standard” model. Her work was more revolutionary than she had supposed: reality disallowed the Platonic view of a well-founded set of natural numbers. Well-foundedness was a slip-up in the development of set theory.
Comment #7 July 15th, 2024 at 11:14 pm
There’s a saying, “This is why we can’t have nice things”. It is nigh-impossible to engage with everyone who tries to engage with you on the Internet. Even apart from the numbers, there’s just too many bad-faith actors. And somewhere in here is a deep point about a profound failing of Internet Rationalism, that it has no good way of handling malicious intellectual dishonesty. It’s obvious that this causes you great stress, so these policy changes are much better for you personally. Almost always, decreasing personal stress in dealing with the misery of social media is the right thing to do.
Comment #8 July 16th, 2024 at 12:50 am
I admit that I am sorry to hear this, as your comment section as-was was one of the most interesting and compelling I was familiar with.
But, I’m also glad that you are doing what you need to for your well-being. People are not automatons, however much our current moment may be urging us to act and even feel like them; keep being a person.
Comment #9 July 16th, 2024 at 2:16 am
Every public server on the internet faces thousands of attacks daily. Login attempts with popular passwords, various vulnerability checks, DDoS attacks for high value targets, etc. It’s what anonymity enables.
In your case they clearly target your operational vulnerability – answering all seemingly honest questions. But attackers are not interested in hearing them. They want you to accept what they like, the “truth” that suits them the most, while you forfeit the real truth. It’s simply a hack attempt. You can actually learn those attemps from wordings they use, even at the first encounter. There are patterns. But it becomes complicated too, everything evolves.
As for treating every message as a mission – this is probably true even for honest questions. Because every interaction changes our state of mind. A mind is not a pure function running as an oracle. There are “logs” that can be reprocessed at various moments in the future.
Comment #10 July 16th, 2024 at 2:50 am
Hi Scott,
It think this is an excellent decision.
Comment #11 July 16th, 2024 at 3:48 am
I’ve posted curious facts and/or questions on your blog and I hope I’m not part of the trolls or caused an opportunity for trolls to attack you.
Anyway, from my perspective – your openness and vulnerability define you and it’s why journalists and Twitter people adore you and your quantum expertise more than anyone.
But it’s also an opportunity for assholes, and if it causes your mental health to worsen, as a reader, I’m voting *100%* towards a very closed section. You don’t owe everyone a reply. Why is BB(5) an important computer science problem? Because *vibes* (a common expression among my generation) 😃.
Best regards
Filip
Comment #12 July 16th, 2024 at 4:20 am
Dear Scott,
Here is a personal missive, then: congratulations on your choice! It is the right decision and will make your life considerably better. Feeling somewhat close to you after following your blog for a long time, I’m glad for you that you made it.
If I might suggest a follow-up action, I would strongly encourage you (and everyone else) to disengage from X as well, on which the pattern is the same: abusive extremist stances from a handful of either trolls or terminally online people, absolutely unrepresentative not only of the general population but also of their own political side’s ideas, and feeding each other’s frenzy. Don’t listen to these people, don’t read their tweets: they represent nothing.
I hope it helps!
Comment #13 July 16th, 2024 at 5:26 am
Seth Finkelstein #7:
somewhere in here is a deep point about a profound failing of Internet Rationalism, that it has no good way of handling malicious intellectual dishonesty.
Ironically, I’d say that Eliezer and Scott Alexander and the other leaders of Internet Rationalism have done much better than I have at not getting derailed by malicious intellectual dishonesty. So maybe it’s just a me problem, I don’t know.
Anyway, thanks so much everyone for the kind words!
Comment #14 July 16th, 2024 at 8:52 am
Scott,
I think any change that gives you more peace-of-mind is a good thing. You certainly don’t owe anyone any of your time, especially when they’re clearly malicious in many cases.
A somewhat-related idea though – have you ever thought about actually *upgrading* your comment section to use better software? I’m specifically thinking of threading and upvotes/downvotes?
I feel like that would not only make it better for your readers, but it might solve your problem in a more elegant way that you might like more in the long-run; you can simply see threads that are voted up, and engage with them, instead of with low-level mean malicious comments. I believe you’ll discover that the fact that most readers are decent will help this work as a natural filtering mechanism for what’s worth your time.
(Semi-relatedly – ever thought of opening a Substack? They have pretty decent software.)
Comment #15 July 16th, 2024 at 9:14 am
This seems to be a good solution to a huge problem. It will likely result in a lot less submissions from wackos who just want to see their name in print.
To keep things interesting, kindly continue to include some slightly nonstandard science views (like from me, plus a lot of much smarter contributors).
Comment #16 July 16th, 2024 at 9:20 am
This, I think, is great decision on your part!
Comment #17 July 16th, 2024 at 9:37 am
Good luck with the new policy and hope it has the intended effect. I can only imagine the stressors that particularly impact your state of mind at this time.
Comment #18 July 16th, 2024 at 1:48 pm
Scott: very wise decision.
Feel free to not publish this comment: as a 10yrs Shtetl’s aficionado, I just wanted to tell this to you. Keep it up with your great work.
Comment #19 July 16th, 2024 at 2:59 pm
Sadly I think you’re doing the right thing Scott. I’ll miss the old openness of the comments section, but the trolls are a constant and its not worth the stress on your part.
I’m from the UK, and don’t really know much about US politics, so I have to ask … do you have any insight into why its so hard for the democrats to get rid of Biden? Do they want Trump to win? Why on earth is it so hard for them to find an intelligent, principled substitute who doesn’t want to see the world burn?
Comment #20 July 16th, 2024 at 3:07 pm
Mike #19: Thanks!!
The main issue is that the Democratic primary already happened, before everyone understood how advanced Biden’s senility now is. That means Biden controls the delegates, and it’s entirely his choice whether to release them. If he stepped down, there could be a radically abbreviated primary, which I’m guessing Kamala Harris would win for game-theoretic coordination reasons, even if Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom or someone else would theoretically have a better chance. But Biden has shown no signs of wanting to step down despite pressure, and the Trump assassination attempt took the whole question out of the news cycle.
Comment #21 July 16th, 2024 at 3:33 pm
Scott, I have to admit, most of the time I just page through your blog looking for your comments anyway, and only read other comments when you reference them in a reply. Your new policy optimizes my Shtetl Optimized experience 🙂
Comment #22 July 16th, 2024 at 3:41 pm
Scott #20 Thanks for that. What a time to be alive.
Comment #23 July 16th, 2024 at 6:46 pm
In France liberals won and in UK there is resentment of Brexit. Globally if there is a liberal undercurrent, why should US be any different? He has picked JD Vance from Ohio which means Trump is afraid of the midwest.
Comment #24 July 16th, 2024 at 6:47 pm
I don’t believe I’ve ever commented on one of your posts, though I’ve read many of them over the years. I, too, would like to say that I support this policy, and I hope it leaves you feeling less stressed and attacked. While I read Shtetl-Optimized primarily for the QC insights and news, I do find your non-QC posts interesting (even, or perhaps especially, the ones I don’t entirely agree with), and I’d be disappointed if you felt you couldn’t continue to write them because of hostile and unfair reception from online bullies.
Incidentally, I happened to be working for OpenText when you did your online talk for them, and I enjoyed that very much as well.
Comment #25 July 16th, 2024 at 11:52 pm
Congrats to Irit Dinur, Elon Lindenstrauss, and Aaron Naber for their new appointments at IAS:
https://www.ias.edu/news/three-world-leading-mathematicians-join-ias-faculty
Dinur and Lindenstrauss are both moving from Israeli instutitions (Weizmann Inst. and HUJI respectively). Naber is coming from Northwestern U. Do the first two represent a brain drain from Israel?
Comment #26 July 17th, 2024 at 2:21 am
Mike #19, Scott #20, I just wouldn’t worry about Biden. The Dem and Repub voters are all so entrenched that it doesn’t matter what the candidates do. Trump was convicted of 34 criminal charges and his polling essentially didn’t budge. His supporters didn’t care. Then Biden did a decrepit debate performance like Abe Simpson and same thing, no polling change. Most recently, Trump got shot by a would-be assassin and again, no polling bump. He’s now walking around the RNC with a bandage on his ear as if he had been bitten by Mike Tyson. But, nobody cares.
The US presidential election isn’t about the president per se. It’s about the whole executive branch and it’s routine for the actual president to be a semi-drooling figurehead (Bush 43, Reagan, late-period Nixon, and so on). We’re used to it and accept it. It happens everywhere: https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/article/96/5/325/1551292 (“Diseased, demented, depressed: serious illness in Heads of State” (2003). Idk whether Biden can beat Trump but none of the headline stories about them seem to make any difference. It will be pretty close either way.
Comment #27 July 17th, 2024 at 6:11 am
asdf #26: “it’s routine for the actual president to be a semi-drooling figurehead (Bush 43, Reagan, late-period Nixon, and so on). We’re used to it and accept it. It happens everywhere: https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/article/96/5/325/1551292 (“Diseased, demented, depressed: serious illness in Heads of State” (2003).”
From my reading of the linked paper so far, there were extremely serious consequences of the president being “diseased, demented” in the given examples. To write this comment, I now stopped at the point: “… All because one dictator was deranged and we had no other means of ousting him.”
I got the impression that even if “we’re used to it and accept it,” it still has pretty bad consequences, and it would be better if we could prevent it.
Comment #28 July 17th, 2024 at 8:25 am
Finally! I’m not sure I even see a drawback to this. Your mental health improves and we see a curated, higher quality list of comments. Most of us scan for your answers to comments anyhow, but now they will only be answers to quality comments!
Don’t ever forget that your natural tendency to let everyone comment, as well as your attempt to engage everyone, is a wonderful quality. The fact that it is untenable in this environment doesn’t detract from that.
Comment #29 July 17th, 2024 at 11:46 am
asdf #26: I do not believe the three Presidents you referenced came across as “semi-drooling figureheads” at the time of their re-election for the second term.
In the November 7, 1972 general election, President Nixon carried 49 of 50 states, winning the election with 520 electoral votes.
In the second presidential debate (October 21, 1984) with Democratic candidate Walter Mondale, President Reagan addressed questions of his age and mental fitness for office. When political correspondent Henry Trewhitt noted that, “you already are the oldest President in history,” and expressed concerns about how the President would fare in a security crisis, President Reagan responded with the famous lines, “I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
Ronald Reagan’s personal decision as the President (despite fierce and protracted opposition of the State Department) to include the line “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall” in his epochal address at the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987 exemplifies Presidential decisions (and actions/performances) that are impossible to outsource.
Comment #30 July 17th, 2024 at 12:41 pm
Here’s a bit of a crazy idea:
You are allowed to fine people real money.
To enforce this policy, readers can only comment if they have a deposit, say $5 (or whatever the maximum fee might be).
(Just for fun, very small fees (like a millionth of a cent) are charged for good faith yet bad ideas.)
Comment #31 July 17th, 2024 at 2:23 pm
I occasionally stopped by this blog in years past to read one of your superb “STEM” posts, mostly without reading comments. In the wake of October 7, I also read your posts on this topic, often including comments (and occasionally commenting myself). To me personally, one of the singularly attractive features of those “post-October 7” posts was you engaging with those critical of Israel, who expressed their views with civility and in good faith. I trust I am not the only one who would welcome and appreciate you engaging (at your leisure and discretion) with those supporters of Trump who comment on your blog with civility and in good faith. As Trump seems to be exceedingly likely to be our next democratically elected President, I personally think it is imperative to engage with those of his supporters who are willing and able to have a civil conversation.
Comment #32 July 17th, 2024 at 3:51 pm
PS. I personally find Trump’s January 6 behavior abhorrent and inexcusable and I completely agree with the sentiment expressed in your prayer. Yet I do support the use of force in self-defense against pure evil (e.g. Hitler, Hamas, Osama bin Laden), including targeted killing. Those who in their righteous indignation equated Trump with Hitler are not responsible for the Butler assassination attempt. Yet I personally do find such rhetorical flourishes unhelpful and ill-advised.
Comment #33 July 17th, 2024 at 4:37 pm
I welcome your change in comment policy. It is painful to watch trolls in action over and over.
However, I have to say, I have learned some things from the trolls, most importantly how nasty and (sometimes) resourceful they are but also some interesting and valuable information in their politics and views, and also from your responses.
By no means am I lamenting your new policy. I’ll be happy to see more focus on science here. It’s just that nowhere else could I see this kind of back and forth in such detail.
Comment #34 July 17th, 2024 at 5:18 pm
AG #31, #32: The post you want is a-comin’!
Yeah, I always thought that the Trump=Hitler thing simply reflected a paucity of historical knowledge, of how many run-of-the-mill autocrats, strongmen, and despots have marred human civilization, how many rungs down there are on the ladder before you reach Literally Hitler.
Comment #35 July 17th, 2024 at 6:00 pm
I am looking forward to reading your post. Trump is a demagogue, and the danger of such (and the ensuing “Tyranny of the Demos”) was discussed at length and in depth by the Framers of the Constitution. As an American, I do trust they (barely) got it just right.
Comment #36 July 17th, 2024 at 9:52 pm
A large language model could execute the attack strategy you’ve described, so your experience can be attributed to only having one enemy willing to spend $100 of compute against you.
1. the world doesn’t hate you
2. update your model of the human intent behind internet comments
Comment #37 July 18th, 2024 at 12:46 am
In reference to your prayer:
Conflicts are decided by three factors: tactics, strategy, and logistics.
Evil has the tactical advantage. Good has the strategic advantage. Therefore the issue is decided by the third factor: logistics, or in other words Reason.
Thus the importance of clear thinking.
Comment #38 July 18th, 2024 at 12:53 am
Assassination is too good for Trump. What he deserves, and we need, is his defeat, dishonor, disgrace, conviction, and imprisonment. That too is violence, but it is the legitimate, because orderly, violence of a stable State.
Comment #39 July 18th, 2024 at 2:05 pm
Scott,
I’d like to see you publish another (semi-popular science book?) like QCSD or rerelease an updated and expanded edition of QCSD. It’s the perfect mix of depth and rigor while not being too specialist and difficult for the curious intelligent layman.
Best
Adam
Comment #40 July 18th, 2024 at 3:48 pm
Here are the thoughts of a thoughtful Christian (he is British, and an Orthodox, not Evangelical) how to relate to this all:
https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/all-the-world-is-myth
Regarding the following sentence in your prayer: “But randomness can’t explain why a bullet aimed at a destroyer of American democracy must inevitably miss by inches, …” one wonders what would be the state of the States now, if the bullet had NOT missed its mark? Something like “Bogotazo” (Google for it), but much worse…?
Comment #41 July 18th, 2024 at 8:39 pm
Good move.
Comment #42 July 19th, 2024 at 8:19 am
Not really a comment, I just encountered your blog through astralcodexten@substack.com .
Anyway, the ‘follow’ link on your page(s) doesn’t seem to work as intended. I suspect it did at one time and has somehow been left in the dust. (I used to work in software QA and I seem to have a talent for finding bad links.)
Thank you for ‘My Prayer’ by the way.
Comment #43 July 19th, 2024 at 12:52 pm
Any plans for Nader Trading in 2024?
Comment #44 July 19th, 2024 at 5:26 pm
I just started reading your blog. Came here from some other sciencey blog–can’t recall. Pharyngula? Nanoscale news?
I totally support your decision to moderate the comments.
You shouldn’t have to feel compelled to let any old jerk have a platform on your blog to spew vitriol.
Liked your post “My Prayer”
Though I think sometimes you got to stop turning the other cheek. Or speak softly and carry a big stick.
Still, violence should not be the answer to a complex problem. even a problem like trump.
Comment #45 July 20th, 2024 at 8:55 am
It’s a bit bittersweet, but this new policy is mostly a relief.
It felt terrible to see you being abused again and again.
Thank you for a really nice blog.
Comment #46 July 20th, 2024 at 1:00 pm
Long time reader, first time commenter (I think. It’s conceivable that I’ve commented before and forgotten about it.)
(Content note: I am going to briefly discuss my own experience with mental illness in a way which might be distressing. Please skip reading this comment if it will hurt you.)
I really, really commend you for doing this. As someone who does not know you personally, I don’t want to speculate too much about the inner workings of your soul. However, I do have a personal history of very self-destructive ways of engaging with the internet. I believe that the way I engaged with the internet until fairly recently was a form of self-harm. I am someone who used to self-injure with broken glass and razorblades and I have very visible, more-than-a-decade old scars. I’m also someone who used to be bulimic. However, I honestly feel like my ways of engaging with the internet have been MORE painful, and more self-destructive than either of those two things. Like I said, I don’t know you personally, but I often get the vibe from your posts that you are engaging with the internet in self-harming ways. It’s very hard to recognize this, and harder to stop, but I want you to know that you deserve to be happy and well.
It is hard to describe how difficult it has been for me to step away from these self-destructive patterns, and this is as someone who is not a public figure and never has been. I don’t think I would survive being a public figure. That’s not hyperbole; I mean that it would break my brain in ways that would literally endanger my life. It must have been very hard for you to be the focus of so much negative attention. I really hope you can allow yourself to continue to show a modicum of self-preservation. You do not owe it to the world to make yourself miserable.
You said in your post “So I engage, because I’m Scott Aaronson and that’s what I do; that’s a large part of the value I can offer the world.” I admire your commitment to honest conversation, but I have to say that 1. You are an extremely accomplished professor 2. You are a husband and father 3. You are someone who donates to effective charities. I am loath to tell someone I’ve never met (and who is clearly much smarter than me) how to live his life, but it seems like you have other avenues for contributing to the world that will cause you much more happiness. I also want to impress upon you that your happiness is intrinsically valuable and precious, simply because YOU ARE A SENTIENT BEING. You do not have to convince anyone of anything to be allowed to treat your own wellbeing as an important goal.
Comment #47 July 21st, 2024 at 3:28 am
Thank you. I’m glad for you. This makes me happy.
Comment #48 July 21st, 2024 at 11:17 am
Nominating Mitt Romney strikes me as a brilliant idea:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/21/opinion/biden-west-wing-aaron-sorkin.html
Comment #49 July 23rd, 2024 at 1:58 pm
Re your prayer from the other day – I don’t know if you saw this, but Etgar Keret also had a piece on prayer regarding the assassination that sounds a lot like something you might have said
https://etgarkeret.substack.com/p/saved
Comment #50 July 24th, 2024 at 8:59 am
Hi. if this policy encourages you to dedicate more time to writing blog posts, then this would be a win-win scenario. Even though I valued (a lot) your feedback on some of my comments and questions in the past, I am usually happier to see there are new content to read. Thanks.
Comment #51 July 26th, 2024 at 4:42 am
After commenting in #35 I recalled the story of Gödel’s citizenship exam during which he claimed to discover a loophole in the US Constitution enabling the establishment of a dictatorship in the US (quotation below is from “Journey to the Edge of Reason” by Stephen Budiansky):
“Now, Mr. Gödel, where do you come from?”
“Where I come from? Austria.”
“What kind of government did you have in Austria?”
“It was a republic, but the constitution was such that it finally was changed into a dictatorship,” Gödel replied.
“That is very bad,” the judge said. “Of course that could not happen in this country.”
“Oh, yes,” Gödel exclaimed. “I can prove it!”
Apparently no one knows with certainty the particulars of Gödel’s discovery:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2010183
Comment #52 July 26th, 2024 at 10:06 pm
Congratulations Scott! I believe this is a great decision for your quality of life and likely (and less important) also net positive for the quality of this blog’s comments.
Comment #53 July 28th, 2024 at 9:17 pm
“And yet it’s become painfully clear that, as long as I maintain a quasi-open comment section, I’ll feel guilty if I don’t answer everyone.”
Guilt’s a big motivator, so you’ve made a wise decision to limit who you respond to (though modding who even appears is a choice I’m personally more ambivalent about). Personally, in commenter heavy blogs (as opposed to commenter light blogs) I am typically not wanting the OP to respond (at least under their regular user ID). It was horrible having Scott Alexander respond to one of my comments in an SSC open thread. I immediately felt overwhelmed with all of the other commenters then responding under him.
It’s far better if just another regular commenter responds. Then we can go back and forth and, after we’ve pretty much said everything and have run out of oomph, the OP/blogger can respond to agree or disagree.
Comment #54 July 28th, 2024 at 10:41 pm
@AG 31,35
The US does not have a democracy at the Federal level, it has a republican form of government there. No president has ever been democratically elected.
The framers/founders had a real world example of well over 2 centuries of *modern* direct democracy in Switzerland. And while sure, it had issues, these were no worse than were seen in non-democratic pre-Revolution America (e.g. Bacon’s Rebellion). As such, those who disliked democracy had no historical excuse for their dislike. I believe that the fundamental issues the framers had with democracy were 1) possibility of chaos (which they share with most people of all classes), and 2) getting overruled with respect to what their ancestors had previously established as their “property rights” (to a great extent this happened anyway to the Southerners among them in the early 1860s).
Comment #55 July 31st, 2024 at 2:19 am
I agree on everything and I really hope Trump will lose, but:
“American-led peaceful world order”. Seriously?
And why? Just because you can (i.e. you are full of the best weapons by far)?
I agree that USA is the leading military power: in this regard the lead belongs to them.
But…honestly I do not see why they should lead also in other fields, in particular the culture, healthcare/school/social model and so on.
I understand you specified that the leadership should regard “peace” (really USA regards peace as a high standard?) but if a country “leads” the world in some respect, the leadership propagates to many other fields, and those are not necessarily the best paths. As European naturalized Canadian, I do not find the American “cultural model” worth following so much..and not only in comparison with Europe (nobody is perfect…)
You live in Texas…you should know…
Comment #56 July 31st, 2024 at 8:08 pm
#54: The Framers were far more preoccuppied with the Periclean Athens – brief as that laboratory of (direct vs representative) Democracy might have been.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Comment #57 July 31st, 2024 at 11:33 pm
@AG #56
Those who study history are doomed to project it onto the future.
Many of the framers may have had a classical education, but they also thought Switzerland was the shizzle (e.g. the second amendment). It’s possible they weren’t worried about democracy as much under the Articles of Confederation (more similar to the Swiss model). But given their knowledge of Switzerland vis-a-vis the short lived Athenian democracy, any problems they had with democracy should have been addressed with the separation of powers, Bill of Rights, an appointed Supreme court, and how difficult they made it to amend the Constitution.
Therefore I really don’t buy “democracy” as a bugaboo. Maybe a few of them were irrationally afraid of it. But for the most part I think they would have been most interested in just maintaining their privileges while also eliminating nobility and royalty.
Comment #58 August 3rd, 2024 at 5:30 pm
#57: Switzerland in its present form is a splendid Confederation indeed. However it is not a “continental” Constitutional Republic (comparing US to Brazil or India strikes me as more appropriate).
I just came across an article pertaining to the point I attempted to make in #35:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/opinion/founding-fathers-president-election.html
Comment #59 August 5th, 2024 at 10:39 pm
@AG, 58:
A dictator is definitively not a demos. Pretty much the antithesis of a demos, even if popular.
I could only read part of that NYT article in reader mode.
Comment #60 March 23rd, 2025 at 10:24 am
In addition to the quest for the smallest Turing machine for ZF, maybe it’d be interesting to try to construct the smallest Turing machine that checks an(y) (essentially) undecidable theory? Like Robinson Arithmetic or whichever undecidable theory is most compactly representable as a Turing machine? Not sure if this question makes sense.