Why Yudkowsky is wrong about "covalently bonded equivalents of biology"
confidence level: I am a physicist, not a biologist, so don’t take this the account of a domain level expert.
This is my article on one of the dumbest and most obviously false claims Yudkowsky has ever made, about biology not using covalent bonds.
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Organic chemist there
Hey, thanks so much for looking through it! If you're alright with messaging me your email or something, I might consult you on some more related things.
With your permission, I'm tempted to edit this response into the original post, it's really good. Have you looked over Yudkowsky's word salad in the EA forum thread? Would be interested in getting your thoughts on that as well.
Have you looked over Yudkowsky’s word salad in the EA forum thread? Would be interested in getting your thoughts on that as well.
update 2: i'm not doing that, he sounds like a straight up cultist in this one
my DMs are open, but lemmy's DMs seem to be janky, matrix should be more reliable
I’m tempted to edit this response into the original post
no issues with that
Yudkowsky’s word salad
i'll have a closer look tomorrow, for now i'd just say that that steel chain protein analogy is okay, however if you wanted to convey directionality of hydrogen bonds, then every link is magnetized, and really these links are not welded shut, but instead bolted, so you can disassemble them and put them together again with some effort. continuing this analogy, diamondoids would be elaborate welded assembly of stiff H-beams or something like that
i see that EY tries to "get" materials science from first principles, in true aristotelian fashion, never reading first year BSc level chemistry textbook, fails badly and can't even comprehend that he can be wrong. in other words, another tuesday