On #1: I think calling something “middle-school-level” is, when applied to something done by intelligent adults, itself a term of contempt. I would not use that term to describe something I thought worth caring about. (I remark for clarity that it wasn’t I who used the term to describe concerns about karma.)
On #2: I agree that an ideal reasoner could have both those properties but am fairly sure that very few real human beings (even in the rather unusual LW population) do, whence my remark about halfway-normal human beings.
On #3: “Senseless” is too strong but if there are rogue agents engaging in such capricious acts then the value of karma score as an indication of the worth of someone’s contributions is reduced. More noise, less SNR. So if you find karma useful as a rough guide to a person’s level of useful contribution, you should be able at having noise added to it. (You might of course be glad of the noise for other reasons, e.g. if you wanted a particular category of person to be intimidated.)
On #3: Fair enough… I agree that if I use the signal, I should prefer that the noise in that signal be lower, all else being equal. So, yes, in that sense I should care. Agreed.
On #2: Yeah, that’s why I agreed that it might be true.
On #1:We may just have to agree to disagree on this one, as I’m too infuriated by what you’re saying to engage with it reasonably.
No, I don’t think it’s miscommunication, nor is it your fault at all. I’m just being emotionally oversensitive due to personal stuff, exacerbated by the fact that I learned today that a family member died and am processing that.
But.. well, OK, let me try to sneak up on it a little. Suppose it were true that someone I loved had killed themselves as a consequence of their experiences with being bullied in middle school. (This is in fact not at all true.) Does it make any sense that I would react strongly and negatively to dismissing middle-school-level status maneuvering as silly, and dismissing concern with it as contemptible?
As to the middle-school-level business, let me try to answer your question and some other allied questions that might be relevant:
I was not saying, and do not believe, that there is anything contemptible or silly going on when people in middle school engage in middle-school-level anything.
I was not saying, and do not believe, that concern with karma and such matters is in fact either (1) middle-school-level status manoeuvring or (2) contemptible.
I didn’t intend to say, though maybe I did by mistake, that everything that could be described as middle-school-level status manoeuvring is contemptible.
What I did say, and did intend to say, is that specifically calling something “middle-school-level”, if the thing in question is being done by adults of (at least) normal mental capacity, is typically an expression of contempt. (And, in particular, I interpreted Lumifer as intending either to express such contempt on his own behalf or at least to imply that the LW admins might see debates and angst over karma as contemptible.)
I suppose none of those is actually an answer to your question (I’m hoping that the above may bypass it, as it were) but here is one: In such a situation I can entirely see how you might have that reaction, and I’d regard it as a reasonable but maybe not a rational, reaction to have.
I would also agree that calling something “middle-school-level” when being done by adults suggests that the adult in question is not particularly competent. E.g., I might talk about trying to find my way around Berlin using middle-school German. Whether this expresses contempt or not depends a lot on the subject and the context.
I would add that many people don’t seem to get better at managing status games than a slightly above-average high-schooler, though that’s probably not true for middle school.
On #1: I think calling something “middle-school-level” is, when applied to something done by intelligent adults, itself a term of contempt. I would not use that term to describe something I thought worth caring about. (I remark for clarity that it wasn’t I who used the term to describe concerns about karma.)
On #2: I agree that an ideal reasoner could have both those properties but am fairly sure that very few real human beings (even in the rather unusual LW population) do, whence my remark about halfway-normal human beings.
On #3: “Senseless” is too strong but if there are rogue agents engaging in such capricious acts then the value of karma score as an indication of the worth of someone’s contributions is reduced. More noise, less SNR. So if you find karma useful as a rough guide to a person’s level of useful contribution, you should be able at having noise added to it. (You might of course be glad of the noise for other reasons, e.g. if you wanted a particular category of person to be intimidated.)
On #3: Fair enough… I agree that if I use the signal, I should prefer that the noise in that signal be lower, all else being equal. So, yes, in that sense I should care. Agreed.
On #2: Yeah, that’s why I agreed that it might be true.
On #1:We may just have to agree to disagree on this one, as I’m too infuriated by what you’re saying to engage with it reasonably.
Oh! I can’t help wondering whether there’s some miscommunication going on here. Could you explain what infuriates you so?
No, I don’t think it’s miscommunication, nor is it your fault at all. I’m just being emotionally oversensitive due to personal stuff, exacerbated by the fact that I learned today that a family member died and am processing that.
But.. well, OK, let me try to sneak up on it a little.
Suppose it were true that someone I loved had killed themselves as a consequence of their experiences with being bullied in middle school. (This is in fact not at all true.)
Does it make any sense that I would react strongly and negatively to dismissing middle-school-level status maneuvering as silly, and dismissing concern with it as contemptible?
Oh, shit. I’m sorry.
As to the middle-school-level business, let me try to answer your question and some other allied questions that might be relevant:
I was not saying, and do not believe, that there is anything contemptible or silly going on when people in middle school engage in middle-school-level anything.
I was not saying, and do not believe, that concern with karma and such matters is in fact either (1) middle-school-level status manoeuvring or (2) contemptible.
I didn’t intend to say, though maybe I did by mistake, that everything that could be described as middle-school-level status manoeuvring is contemptible.
What I did say, and did intend to say, is that specifically calling something “middle-school-level”, if the thing in question is being done by adults of (at least) normal mental capacity, is typically an expression of contempt. (And, in particular, I interpreted Lumifer as intending either to express such contempt on his own behalf or at least to imply that the LW admins might see debates and angst over karma as contemptible.)
I suppose none of those is actually an answer to your question (I’m hoping that the above may bypass it, as it were) but here is one: In such a situation I can entirely see how you might have that reaction, and I’d regard it as a reasonable but maybe not a rational, reaction to have.
[EDITED to try to fix a formatting screwup.]
I would also agree that calling something “middle-school-level” when being done by adults suggests that the adult in question is not particularly competent. E.g., I might talk about trying to find my way around Berlin using middle-school German. Whether this expresses contempt or not depends a lot on the subject and the context.
I would add that many people don’t seem to get better at managing status games than a slightly above-average high-schooler, though that’s probably not true for middle school.
I would agree that it’s not an entirely rational reaction to have.