As a rule I don’t think it’s productive to worry about karma too much, and I’m going to assume you agree and that you’re asking “what am I missing, here” which is a perfectly useful question.
Before I get into your question, here’s an example that was at −2 when I encountered it, but that I see has now risen to having +5, so there’s definitely some fluidity to the outcome (you might be interested in the larger discussion on that page anyway).
So the two examples that you mention at −2 presently are 1 and 2.
Part of the problem in those examples seems to be an issue of language, but I don’t think that’s all of it. For example, you offer to clarify that when you say “natural inclination” you mean an “innate impulse [that] is strongly present almost universally in humans” and give examples of things humans seek regularly (“eating, company, sex”). From my interpretation of the other posts, when they say “natural inclination” they mean “behavior that would be observed in a group of humans (of at least modest size) unless laws or circumstances specifically prevent it”. I suspect that the downvotes could be because your meaning was sufficiently unexpected that even when you wrote to clarify what it was, they couldn’t believe that that was what you meant. And, on balance, no, that doesn’t seem right to me since you were making an honest effort to clarify terms.
For what it’s worth, here’s why I’d object to your choice of terms, and this could explain some of the downvotes, since it’s obviously much less effort to just downvote than explain. I’d object because your definition inserts an implied “and the situation is normal” into the definition. For example, in normal situations a person would rather have an ice cream than kill someone. But if the situation is that you’re holding a knife and the man in front of you has just raped your sister and boasts about doing it again soon, maybe the situation is different enough that the typical innate impulse is different. Since what’s usually of interest is behavior over a long period of time, the dependency on the situation is problematic.
As for the second comment, I don’t understand it. Maybe I’m missing context. You seem to set up an unreasonable partition of the possibilities into 3 things.
Anyway, sometimes the negative votes can tell us what we’re doing wrong, sometimes they seem to just be a consequence of saying something that’s not mainstream for the site, but I don’t want to let myself get trapped into dismissing them all that way, so I usually take a minute to think about it when it happens.
Incidentally, I think it would be a big mistake to actively try to get maximum +karma on your comments. On the benign side you’d start trying hard to be the first poster on major articles. On the more negative side you’d have the incentive to approve of the prevailing argument with clever words. To exaggerate: “Be proud that you don’t have too much that was merely popular.” That said, some of the highly voted articles, at least, clearly deserve it.
I’d object because your definition inserts an implied “and the situation is normal” into the definition.
There are possible privileged situations, however. If you are in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, living with your tribe out on the African savannah, how many days per year are you going to have an “inclination” to kill another human, vs. how many days are you going to have an “inclination” to eat, have sex and socialize. I’m guessing the difference is something like 1 vs. 360, unless tribal conflicts were much more common in that environment than I expect, and people desired to kill during those conflicts more than I expect (furthermore I would expect people to see it as an unfortunate but necessary action, which doesn’t jive with my sense of the definition of “inclination”, but that’s not critical to the point). Clearly putting them on the same level carves up human behavior in a particular way which is not obvious just from the term “natural inclination.”
That all seems fair to me. To be honest I haven’t read enough of the context to know how relevant these distinctions are to it, and I agree the term seems problematic which is all the more reason that trying to nail it down is actually useful behavior, hence MrMind’s concern, I guess.
As a rule I don’t think it’s productive to worry about karma too much, and I’m going to assume you agree and that you’re asking “what am I missing, here” which is a perfectly useful question.
Before I get into your question, here’s an example that was at −2 when I encountered it, but that I see has now risen to having +5, so there’s definitely some fluidity to the outcome (you might be interested in the larger discussion on that page anyway).
So the two examples that you mention at −2 presently are 1 and 2.
Part of the problem in those examples seems to be an issue of language, but I don’t think that’s all of it. For example, you offer to clarify that when you say “natural inclination” you mean an “innate impulse [that] is strongly present almost universally in humans” and give examples of things humans seek regularly (“eating, company, sex”). From my interpretation of the other posts, when they say “natural inclination” they mean “behavior that would be observed in a group of humans (of at least modest size) unless laws or circumstances specifically prevent it”. I suspect that the downvotes could be because your meaning was sufficiently unexpected that even when you wrote to clarify what it was, they couldn’t believe that that was what you meant. And, on balance, no, that doesn’t seem right to me since you were making an honest effort to clarify terms.
For what it’s worth, here’s why I’d object to your choice of terms, and this could explain some of the downvotes, since it’s obviously much less effort to just downvote than explain. I’d object because your definition inserts an implied “and the situation is normal” into the definition. For example, in normal situations a person would rather have an ice cream than kill someone. But if the situation is that you’re holding a knife and the man in front of you has just raped your sister and boasts about doing it again soon, maybe the situation is different enough that the typical innate impulse is different. Since what’s usually of interest is behavior over a long period of time, the dependency on the situation is problematic.
As for the second comment, I don’t understand it. Maybe I’m missing context. You seem to set up an unreasonable partition of the possibilities into 3 things.
Anyway, sometimes the negative votes can tell us what we’re doing wrong, sometimes they seem to just be a consequence of saying something that’s not mainstream for the site, but I don’t want to let myself get trapped into dismissing them all that way, so I usually take a minute to think about it when it happens.
Incidentally, I think it would be a big mistake to actively try to get maximum +karma on your comments. On the benign side you’d start trying hard to be the first poster on major articles. On the more negative side you’d have the incentive to approve of the prevailing argument with clever words. To exaggerate: “Be proud that you don’t have too much that was merely popular.” That said, some of the highly voted articles, at least, clearly deserve it.
There are possible privileged situations, however. If you are in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, living with your tribe out on the African savannah, how many days per year are you going to have an “inclination” to kill another human, vs. how many days are you going to have an “inclination” to eat, have sex and socialize. I’m guessing the difference is something like 1 vs. 360, unless tribal conflicts were much more common in that environment than I expect, and people desired to kill during those conflicts more than I expect (furthermore I would expect people to see it as an unfortunate but necessary action, which doesn’t jive with my sense of the definition of “inclination”, but that’s not critical to the point). Clearly putting them on the same level carves up human behavior in a particular way which is not obvious just from the term “natural inclination.”
That all seems fair to me. To be honest I haven’t read enough of the context to know how relevant these distinctions are to it, and I agree the term seems problematic which is all the more reason that trying to nail it down is actually useful behavior, hence MrMind’s concern, I guess.