The community doesn’t seem to be able to stand even minor disagreement. Take for example timtyler who agrees about most of what Eliezer Yudkowsky says, even risks from AI as far as I can tell. Here is what Eliezer Yudkowsky has to say:
I think that asking the community to downvote timtyler is a good deal less disruptive than an outright ban would be. It makes it clear that I am not speaking only for myself, which may or may not have an effect on certain types of trolls and trolling.
I declined to answer because I gave up arguing with Phil Goetz long before there was a Less Wrong, back in the SL4 days—I’m sorry, but there are some people that I don’t enjoy debating.
There are many more examples. It often only takes the slightest criticism for people to be called trolls or accused of using dark arts.
What wedrifid said- just because someone on Less Wrong got angry at a contrarian and called them something doesn’t mean Less Wrong holds them in low regard or ignores them.
Multifoliaterose angered a bunch of people (including me) with his early posts, because he thought he could show major logical flaws in reasoning he’d never encountered. But after a while, he settled down, understood what people were actually saying, and started writing criticisms that made sense to his intended audience. He is what I’d consider a good contrarian: I often end up disagreeing with his conclusions, but it’s worth my while to read his posts and re-think my own reasoning.
Robin Hanson is another good contrarian- although I can point to where I fundamentally disagree with him on the possibility of hard takeoff (and on many other things), I still read everything he posts because he often brings up ideas I wouldn’t have thought of myself.
Phil Goetz is kind of a special case: I find he has interesting things to say unless he’s talking about metaethics or decision theory.
One thing that these three have in common is that they read and understood the Sequences, so that they’re criticizing what Less Wrong contributors actually think rather than straw-man caricatures. By contrast, you wrote a post accusing us of failure to Taboo intelligence that shows complete ignorance of the fact that Eliezer explicitly did that in the Sequences. A good contrarian, by contrast, would have looked to see if it was already discussed, and if they still had a critique after reading the relevant discussion, they would have explained why the previous discussion was mistaken.
I wish that the better contrarians would post more often, and I wish that you would develop the habit of searching for past discussion before assuming that our ideas come from nowhere. And while I’m at it, I wish for a jetpack.
Like who? Robin Hanson, who is told that he makes no sense? Or multifoliaterose who is told that he uses dark arts? Or Ben Goertzel, who is frequently ridiculed? Or some actual researcher?
All three links from me? I am flattered that single comments by myself can be considered representative of the position of the entirety of lesswrong. I personally don’t consider single cherry picked comments representative of even the entirety of my own position but if it means I get to be representative of an entire community I might relent.
Someone less biased might interpret my comments as being a reply to a specific post or comment and faults therein and not at all about them being contrarian. For example they may look at multifoliaterose’s earlier, more direct threads and find me supporting multi and giving Eliezer a good scolding. Finding wedrifid citing Robin Hanson positively would be even easier.
On the other hand you didn’t manage to find any links for wedrifid ridiculing Ben Goertzel’s work, the one case where you would have been representing me correctly. I’m almost certain I have criticized something he said in the past since I hold his work in low esteem and in particular recall his few contributions made directly to lesswrong being substandard.
It often only takes the slightest criticism for people to be called trolls or accused of using dark arts.
Alternately it could be said that it takes only the slightest criticism of a particular argument or piece of work for people to cry ‘conspiracy’.
Like who? Robin Hanson, who is told that he makes no sense? Or multifoliaterose who is told that he uses dark arts? Or Ben Goertzel, who is frequently ridiculed? Or some actual researcher? Not even Douglas Hofstadter seems good enough.
The community doesn’t seem to be able to stand even minor disagreement. Take for example timtyler who agrees about most of what Eliezer Yudkowsky says, even risks from AI as far as I can tell. Here is what Eliezer Yudkowsky has to say:
or
Or what about PhilGoetz, a top contributer?
There are many more examples. It often only takes the slightest criticism for people to be called trolls or accused of using dark arts.
What wedrifid said- just because someone on Less Wrong got angry at a contrarian and called them something doesn’t mean Less Wrong holds them in low regard or ignores them.
Multifoliaterose angered a bunch of people (including me) with his early posts, because he thought he could show major logical flaws in reasoning he’d never encountered. But after a while, he settled down, understood what people were actually saying, and started writing criticisms that made sense to his intended audience. He is what I’d consider a good contrarian: I often end up disagreeing with his conclusions, but it’s worth my while to read his posts and re-think my own reasoning.
Robin Hanson is another good contrarian- although I can point to where I fundamentally disagree with him on the possibility of hard takeoff (and on many other things), I still read everything he posts because he often brings up ideas I wouldn’t have thought of myself.
Phil Goetz is kind of a special case: I find he has interesting things to say unless he’s talking about metaethics or decision theory.
One thing that these three have in common is that they read and understood the Sequences, so that they’re criticizing what Less Wrong contributors actually think rather than straw-man caricatures. By contrast, you wrote a post accusing us of failure to Taboo intelligence that shows complete ignorance of the fact that Eliezer explicitly did that in the Sequences. A good contrarian, by contrast, would have looked to see if it was already discussed, and if they still had a critique after reading the relevant discussion, they would have explained why the previous discussion was mistaken.
I wish that the better contrarians would post more often, and I wish that you would develop the habit of searching for past discussion before assuming that our ideas come from nowhere. And while I’m at it, I wish for a jetpack.
All three links from me? I am flattered that single comments by myself can be considered representative of the position of the entirety of lesswrong. I personally don’t consider single cherry picked comments representative of even the entirety of my own position but if it means I get to be representative of an entire community I might relent.
Someone less biased might interpret my comments as being a reply to a specific post or comment and faults therein and not at all about them being contrarian. For example they may look at multifoliaterose’s earlier, more direct threads and find me supporting multi and giving Eliezer a good scolding. Finding wedrifid citing Robin Hanson positively would be even easier.
On the other hand you didn’t manage to find any links for wedrifid ridiculing Ben Goertzel’s work, the one case where you would have been representing me correctly. I’m almost certain I have criticized something he said in the past since I hold his work in low esteem and in particular recall his few contributions made directly to lesswrong being substandard.
Alternately it could be said that it takes only the slightest criticism of a particular argument or piece of work for people to cry ‘conspiracy’.
“Troll” is not a property of a person; it is an activity, one of many which a person may exhibit over time.