Two tongue-in-cheek EA anthems
By Oliver Sourbut @ 2022-07-04T11:52 (–3)
Lighthearted mood-boosting, not too serious.
Here are two songs which cut close to home in a fun way. Empirically more than 9 in 10 EA forum users agree (p > 0.5)[1]. My prior was lower, so you may find them hit or miss.
I present these largely without comment, somewhat inspired by recent discussion of EA-relevant art.
I'm a Good Person
Representative lyric:
I'm a good person, that's my thing,
My nickname is Mother Theresa Luther King
This is My Movement
Representative lyrics:
Like an explosion
of built up emotion, (ooh)
I wanna scream and shout,
I gotta let it out,
Cos this movement
is bigger than me
Incidentally this lyric handily reflects one of my favourite 80k articles
- ^
Citation needed
Max_Daniel @ 2022-07-05T01:55 (+5)
[Info hazard notice: not safe for work.]
Being somewhat self-conscious about being among the older members of the EA community despite being only in my early 30s, I rather turn toward Tocotronic's Ich möchte Teil einer Jugendbewegung sein ("I want to be part of a youth movement").
In a rare feat of prescience, the band also editorialized EA culture in many of their releases starting with their 1991 debut:
- Digital ist besser ("Digital is better", an influential argument for transhumanism)
- Drei Schritte vom Abgrund entfernt ("Three steps away from The Precipice", Google review of a London shopping centre by a young EA after they met Toby Ord on an escalator)
- Wir sind hier nicht in Seattle, Dirk ("We are not in Seattle here, Dirk", a common realization among rationalists after they've relocated to the Bay Area)
- Die Idee ist gut, doch die Welt noch nicht bereit ("The idea is good but the world isn't ready yet"; devastating objection to EA by the incumbent intellectual elite)
- Über Sex kann man nur auf Englisch singen ("About sex one can only sing in English", on the innovative idea to utilize the tried and true strategy of speaking in tongues when conveying info hazards)
- Ich werde mich nie verändern ("I will never change", meditative mantra used to stave off the threat of value drift)
- Ich bin viel zu lange mit euch mitgegangen ("I've walked with you for way too long", anonymous EA upon resolving to embark on the mythical quest of 'building inside-view models')
- Morgen wird wie heute sein ("Tomorrow will be like today", an early pretheoretic articulation of the principle of forecasting by trend extrapolation)
- Dringlichkeit besteht immer ("Urgency always obtains", on the haste consideration)
- Pure Vernunft darf niemals siegen (the true meaning – an oblique diss of Immanuel Kant – only becomes apparent when considering the song title's English translation, "Pure Reason must never prevail").
- Macht es nicht selbst ("Don't do it yourself", the battle cry of EAs who've just realized they can use virtual assistants)
(I usually choose to remain silent about the band's most significant early misstep – their flirtation with early Leverage Research in Jungs, hier kommt der Masterplan ["Boys, here comes the masterplan"].)