On the ethics of engagement, the problem with purity politics, and a world worth fighting for Crossposted from here. I am a contrarian who likes to argue and complain a lot. Because of this, I have never been inclined to block people who argue with me or complain about my work, or even lash out at me with some hostility. I could say a lot of noble sounding things about how I value debate and open discourse, and those things would be true, but I also just feel like I should tolerate other people as much as they have to tolerate me. I recently wrote a piece about AI enthusiasts vs AI skeptics — a very mild piece, I might add, almost repulsively brimming over with both-sides-are-good-people’s and can’t-we-all-just-get-along’s. Yet I have blocked more people in the past three weeks than the past ten years.1 There is a fear in the water right now that is bringing the crazy out in all of us. The stakes are not low. The world is burning, after all. CEOs go on job-murdering sprees and the…
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