One should post arguments because one believes they are valid, and clarify misunderstandings because they are wrong, not argue or post or moderate to try to save personal status
Strong agree. But I claim that I have seen myself and others attempt to do exactly that in response to damaging falsehoods, and that the response has been criticism of defensiveness.
Like, the point wasn’t to salvage personal status; the point was the original attack contained falsehoods, and this was dismissed as if the only activity taking place was a status fight. There was a bucket error going on, a bucket error that I think the ideal LW would have incentive slopes against, and encourage people to grow out of being vulnerable to.
A quote that I believe I cited at the time, which feels relevant here, too:
Draco knew, he knew what he’d done wrong. He’d been so tired after casting twenty-seven Locking Charms for all the other Dragon Warriors. Less than a minute wasn’t enough time to recover after each spell. And so he’d just cast Colloportus on his own padlocked glove, just cast the spell, not put in all his strength to bind it stronger than Harry Potter or Hermione Granger could undo.
But nobody was going to believe that, even if it was true. Even in Slytherin, nobody would believe that. It sounded like an excuse, and an excuse was all that anyone would hear.
… I believe that one of the foremost goals of LessWrong, at least from a social norms standpoint, is to become the sort of place where Draco could say “I think you should seriously consider the possibility that I didn’t cast Colloportus as strongly as I could have, and that therefore Hermione counterspelling it isn’t conclusive re: our relative magical strengths” and not get laughed off stage. And I think that mods who care about that and are unified in their commitment to it are a crucial ingredient.
(Edit: have updated the specific quote in the post to more clearly point at what I’m actually advocating.)
Strong agree. But I claim that I have seen myself and others attempt to do exactly that in response to damaging falsehoods, and that the response has been criticism of defensiveness.
Like, the point wasn’t to salvage personal status; the point was the original attack contained falsehoods, and this was dismissed as if the only activity taking place was a status fight. There was a bucket error going on, a bucket error that I think the ideal LW would have incentive slopes against, and encourage people to grow out of being vulnerable to.
A quote that I believe I cited at the time, which feels relevant here, too:
… I believe that one of the foremost goals of LessWrong, at least from a social norms standpoint, is to become the sort of place where Draco could say “I think you should seriously consider the possibility that I didn’t cast Colloportus as strongly as I could have, and that therefore Hermione counterspelling it isn’t conclusive re: our relative magical strengths” and not get laughed off stage. And I think that mods who care about that and are unified in their commitment to it are a crucial ingredient.
(Edit: have updated the specific quote in the post to more clearly point at what I’m actually advocating.)