communities where conversations are abrasive attract a lower caliber of person than one where they aren’t. Look at what happened to LW.
To whatever extent this is accurate and not just a correlation-causation conversion, this very dynamic is the kind of thing that LW exists (existed) to correct. To yield to it is essentially to give up the entire game.
What it looks like to me is that LW and its associated “institutions” and subcultures are in the process of dissolving and being absorbed into various parts of general society. You are basically endorsing this process, specifically the aspect wherein unique subcultural norms are being overwritten by general societal norms.
The way this comes about is that the high-status members of the subculture eventually become tempted by the prospect of high status in general society, and so in effect “sell out”. Unless previously-lower-status members “step up” to take their place (by becoming as interesting as the original leaders were), the subculture dies, either collapsing due to a power vacuum, or simply by being memetically eaten by the general culture as members continue to follow the old leaders into (what looks like) the promised land.
To whatever extent this is accurate and not just a correlation-causation conversion, this very dynamic is the kind of thing that LW exists (existed) to correct. To yield to it is essentially to give up the entire game.
What it looks like to me is that LW and its associated “institutions” and subcultures are in the process of dissolving and being absorbed into various parts of general society. You are basically endorsing this process, specifically the aspect wherein unique subcultural norms are being overwritten by general societal norms.
The way this comes about is that the high-status members of the subculture eventually become tempted by the prospect of high status in general society, and so in effect “sell out”. Unless previously-lower-status members “step up” to take their place (by becoming as interesting as the original leaders were), the subculture dies, either collapsing due to a power vacuum, or simply by being memetically eaten by the general culture as members continue to follow the old leaders into (what looks like) the promised land.