Hell, if you disagree with me and think I'm wrong on the merits, then by all means make that argument! (Preferably not in my mentions, I'm tired of this whole debacle and am not personally open to changing my mind on LLMs right now.)
But "purity culture" isn't an argument, it's an appeal to the idea that holding principles is *bad*.
(What do I mean when I say I'm not open to changing my mind on the issue at the moment? I mean that when I've tried to be open minded, I get flooded with bad-faith bullshit and outright propaganda. My being closed-minded here is a temporary and reasoned position about conserving my own energies, and not letting people DDoS my rationality. I don't think that the Discourse™ around LLMs is *currently* at a place where opposition to boosterism benefits from open-mindedness.)
I wouldn't be saying all this if it was just Doctorow, I'm even fine disagreeing with people I deeply respect. But he's not the only one saying shit like this, and I think it's worth calling out the broader rhetorical point.
Addendum: since this has now rather dramatically escaped containment, I want to quickly note that if you reply to this thread in a completely embarrassing way, I reserve the right to be at least a bit rude in my responses.