However, I’ll also note that previous discussions were often specifically about PUA and/or feminism. More recent posts were about relationships without either of those topics directly connected, which may be way they had higher quality discussion.
Trouble is, I can hardly see how these discussions can remain sufficiently close to reality without getting into issues where the problematic “PUA and/or feminism” stuff becomes relevant. In fact, from what I see, attempts to do so are one of the principal ways in which I observe the death spirals forming. People write things that are strong applause lights, including in response to each other, and this results in a happy death spiral whose drift away from reality could be stopped only by criticizing the assumptions behind these applause-lights assertions—but no such criticism is possible without bringing up relevant points that trigger the dreaded “PUA and/or feminism” mind-killers.
If nobody even attempts such criticism, what follows is something that may superficially look like a “higher quality discussion,” but is in fact a festival of applause lights and happy death spirals—and on the whole even worse than a quarrel, in which it’s at least clear that something’s gone badly wrong. In my honest opinion, this is in fact what has been happening.
If nobody even attempts such criticism, what follows is something that may superficially look like a “higher quality discussion,” but is in fact a festival of applause lights and happy death spirals—and on the whole even worse than a quarrel, in which it’s at least clear that something’s gone badly wrong. In my honest opinion, this is in fact what has been happening.
There was one case where a well meaning poster collated a conversation and posted it as “the lesswrong consensus” on online dating advice. That was… a less than ideal turn of events.
Yes, I think I know which thread you are talking about. It was one of my major disappointments here. That was, I think, the only time I saw a mass of LW participants approving and upvoting something that was an intellectual equivalent of healing crystals. (This is not a hyperbole—I really think that the intellectual failure was of a similar magnitude, insofar as such things can be meaningfully compared.) A few people’s attempts to bring some realistic perspective ended up creating a bitter controversy, and the crystal-healing-equivalent stuff was left with a respectable net positive vote.
The one I have in mind is this. This post and its comment thread, combined with the final net results of voting, in my opinion decisively refute the idea of any universally applicable “sanity waterline” that is supposedly higher on LW than elsewhere. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the collective failure of rational thinking demonstrated there was so severe that it might as well have been a happy and approving discussion of horoscopes, healing crystals, or the Mayan 2012 doomsday.
It is the prospect of such things starting to re-emerge on a regular and frequent basis that has motivated my reactions in this thread.
No, I wouldn’t say the group is representative, although on the other hand, it’s certainly not just a small fringe group either.
However, I don’t have in mind just people who actively contribute to such nonsense. Another problem is that similar intellectual failures about other topics would be (for the most part) correctly identified and criticized without causing bitter controversy and discourse breakdown, and a mass of other readers would also express correct judgment at least with upvotes and downvotes. So even the general passive approval is, in my opinion, indicative of bias, since such passive approval would certainly not be given to various other things that are not significantly worse by any reasonable standards.
Another bias that’s clearly visible is that when someone displays intellectual failures of similar magnitude in various other areas, this would be taken on LW as indicative of an irrational person who is altogether below the universal standards of rational thinking practiced here—whereas nothing similar occurs when it comes to these topics. Of course, I don’t think people should be written off as general intellectual failures just because they demonstrated irrationality about these topics, but it definitely should serve as a warning for those who sometimes do apply such standards in other situations.
Trouble is, I can hardly see how these discussions can remain sufficiently close to reality without getting into issues where the problematic “PUA and/or feminism” stuff becomes relevant. In fact, from what I see, attempts to do so are one of the principal ways in which I observe the death spirals forming. People write things that are strong applause lights, including in response to each other, and this results in a happy death spiral whose drift away from reality could be stopped only by criticizing the assumptions behind these applause-lights assertions—but no such criticism is possible without bringing up relevant points that trigger the dreaded “PUA and/or feminism” mind-killers.
If nobody even attempts such criticism, what follows is something that may superficially look like a “higher quality discussion,” but is in fact a festival of applause lights and happy death spirals—and on the whole even worse than a quarrel, in which it’s at least clear that something’s gone badly wrong. In my honest opinion, this is in fact what has been happening.
There was one case where a well meaning poster collated a conversation and posted it as “the lesswrong consensus” on online dating advice. That was… a less than ideal turn of events.
Yes, I think I know which thread you are talking about. It was one of my major disappointments here. That was, I think, the only time I saw a mass of LW participants approving and upvoting something that was an intellectual equivalent of healing crystals. (This is not a hyperbole—I really think that the intellectual failure was of a similar magnitude, insofar as such things can be meaningfully compared.) A few people’s attempts to bring some realistic perspective ended up creating a bitter controversy, and the crystal-healing-equivalent stuff was left with a respectable net positive vote.
Which one was that? (Vague recollection of having seen that, and maybe even commented, but can’t recall the exact thread right now.)
The one I have in mind is this. This post and its comment thread, combined with the final net results of voting, in my opinion decisively refute the idea of any universally applicable “sanity waterline” that is supposedly higher on LW than elsewhere. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the collective failure of rational thinking demonstrated there was so severe that it might as well have been a happy and approving discussion of horoscopes, healing crystals, or the Mayan 2012 doomsday.
It is the prospect of such things starting to re-emerge on a regular and frequent basis that has motivated my reactions in this thread.
Is the group reading and responding to these relationship posts representative of Less Wrong? I just skip over them.
No, I wouldn’t say the group is representative, although on the other hand, it’s certainly not just a small fringe group either.
However, I don’t have in mind just people who actively contribute to such nonsense. Another problem is that similar intellectual failures about other topics would be (for the most part) correctly identified and criticized without causing bitter controversy and discourse breakdown, and a mass of other readers would also express correct judgment at least with upvotes and downvotes. So even the general passive approval is, in my opinion, indicative of bias, since such passive approval would certainly not be given to various other things that are not significantly worse by any reasonable standards.
Another bias that’s clearly visible is that when someone displays intellectual failures of similar magnitude in various other areas, this would be taken on LW as indicative of an irrational person who is altogether below the universal standards of rational thinking practiced here—whereas nothing similar occurs when it comes to these topics. Of course, I don’t think people should be written off as general intellectual failures just because they demonstrated irrationality about these topics, but it definitely should serve as a warning for those who sometimes do apply such standards in other situations.
.