I somehow missed all of the previous locust infestations. (I was already pretty uninterested in politics, and LW further encouraged that disinterest.) Given my newfound interest in the intersection between politics and epistemology, I’d like to observe one first hand to see what it was like. I (wrongly?) inferred from this post that LW was affected 4 years ago (and that’s why mods are taking precautions now), but couldn’t find much using the obvious keywords. Does anyone have links they can share of past “mind-killed” political discussion during election cycles, preferably in Rationalist or EA spaces so I can more easily compare to normal behavior?
I also don’t recall ever seeing locust swarms here. Occasional isolated locusts, but they’re OK when there are only a few. I too would be interested to know whether there are specific reasons for expecting a troublesome locust influx this time around.
Last time we didn’t have the personal blog infrastructure in place, so I think there was basically just a ban on politics stuff. Now that ban isn’t in place on personal blogs, so I think there is a good chance a lot of people would go and start writing about that on their personal blogs, and transform the overall site culture.
Ah, that makes some sense. It’ll be interesting to see what happens, though of course the best outcome is that this announcement deters people from entering locust mode and nothing ever needs to be done, after which of course everyone says “see, there was no need to do anything!” :-).
I don’t recall there being a hard ban, and there is some election-related political talk that I can find in the archives, so I think it was more people voluntarily following an implicit norm.
BTW, has the LW mod team given any thought to how to make political discussions here safer, instead of discouraging them? It seems like we (meaning most people interested in rationality) can’t avoid politics forever, and I already regret not learning more about it earlier.
We definitely talk some about it. I don’t currently have any super precise takeaways that aren’t highly context-dependent, but could try writing up some things.
I do also want to note that the goal is not necessarily to discourage the discussion in a blanket way. I generally think that political discussion between long-time members with lower visibility is good and productive, and some of the goals here are to allow that to happen, without deteriorating in predictable ways.
To clarify, in case my intended meaning didn’t get across, by “how to make political discussions here safer”, in addition to “not deteriorating in predictable ways” I also mean “how to not get LW embroiled in controversy and associated with politically incorrect ideas in the minds of outsiders (and thereby drive away members who are legitimately afraid of being associated with a place that is associated with politically incorrect ideas) just because we argue in good faith about them instead of loudly denouncing/banning them”.
I somehow missed all of the previous locust infestations. (I was already pretty uninterested in politics, and LW further encouraged that disinterest.) Given my newfound interest in the intersection between politics and epistemology, I’d like to observe one first hand to see what it was like. I (wrongly?) inferred from this post that LW was affected 4 years ago (and that’s why mods are taking precautions now), but couldn’t find much using the obvious keywords. Does anyone have links they can share of past “mind-killed” political discussion during election cycles, preferably in Rationalist or EA spaces so I can more easily compare to normal behavior?
I also don’t recall ever seeing locust swarms here. Occasional isolated locusts, but they’re OK when there are only a few. I too would be interested to know whether there are specific reasons for expecting a troublesome locust influx this time around.
Last time we didn’t have the personal blog infrastructure in place, so I think there was basically just a ban on politics stuff. Now that ban isn’t in place on personal blogs, so I think there is a good chance a lot of people would go and start writing about that on their personal blogs, and transform the overall site culture.
Ah, that makes some sense. It’ll be interesting to see what happens, though of course the best outcome is that this announcement deters people from entering locust mode and nothing ever needs to be done, after which of course everyone says “see, there was no need to do anything!” :-).
I’m expecting this mostly to be a “the status quo more or less stays the same”, but with more clarity about how multiple site principles intersect.
I don’t recall there being a hard ban, and there is some election-related political talk that I can find in the archives, so I think it was more people voluntarily following an implicit norm.
BTW, has the LW mod team given any thought to how to make political discussions here safer, instead of discouraging them? It seems like we (meaning most people interested in rationality) can’t avoid politics forever, and I already regret not learning more about it earlier.
We definitely talk some about it. I don’t currently have any super precise takeaways that aren’t highly context-dependent, but could try writing up some things.
I do also want to note that the goal is not necessarily to discourage the discussion in a blanket way. I generally think that political discussion between long-time members with lower visibility is good and productive, and some of the goals here are to allow that to happen, without deteriorating in predictable ways.
To clarify, in case my intended meaning didn’t get across, by “how to make political discussions here safer”, in addition to “not deteriorating in predictable ways” I also mean “how to not get LW embroiled in controversy and associated with politically incorrect ideas in the minds of outsiders (and thereby drive away members who are legitimately afraid of being associated with a place that is associated with politically incorrect ideas) just because we argue in good faith about them instead of loudly denouncing/banning them”.
I posted my reply to this as a post. Can you ping users on posts?
You mean tag people so they get notified, like on FB? I don’t think you can. Just send them a PM with the link, I guess.