So I’ve been very puzzled as to why when I post to LW, it’s not uncommon for people to respond in confrontational / standoffish ways, implicitly or explicitly expressing skepticism as to the value of what I have to offer.
Possibilities that hinge on the way you post are worth extra attention if you notice that people are responding that way to you but not to others. I don’t have a fully formed opinion on that, though, and so will ignore it in favor of generic possibilities. The first three that come to mind:
People are busy, and collaborate to conserve attention. Suppose A posts 5k words; B reads it and responds with “I think this is low quality for reason X,” then C can see the comment first and avoid spending time on the post. B can’t recover their lost time by writing the comment, but they can save C’s time, and by creating a culture of quality / calling out bad quality, they can have their time saved in the future. (This is more typically a role for karma, but comments also have a function here. Comments often remind people to vote, one way or another—one of my early posts was hovering at a very low score until someone commented that they thought the post was surprisingly good for its karma score, at which point it rocketed up about 10 points. It looks like a similar thing happened with this post.)
People are confused, and resolve their confusion by throwing it at other people. “Claim X seems wrong” is an invitation to point out that the claim is not actually X, but Y, that while X seems wrong it is actually right for reason Z, or that yes, X is wrong. Norms for resolving confusion vary widely across communities, and the sort of thing that one is encouraged to say publicly and immediately in one place might be the sort of thing one is encouraged to quietly contemplate, for years if necessary, in another place.
People are attempting to demonstrate their intelligence or compete for karma by identifying problems in posts.
There is a fourth possibility, which has to deal with openness vs. suspension of disbelief. Typically, I associate LWers with being more open than traditional skeptics, because LWers are more willing to run EV and VoI calculations and try things out that might not work or might be silly, where the standard skeptic is more interested in protecting themself from wrong beliefs. Underlying skepticism will naturally generate confrontational / standoffish behavior, because the skeptic is naturally standoffish when it comes to ideas, and their standards require surviving challenges that seem confrontational. It may be that LW has more skeptics than other communities you’re using as reference.
I wasn’t talking about people’s responses to my posts specifically: I’ve had the same reaction to people’s comments on other people’s as well – I don’t see a difference on that front.
My intuitive response has been “these people are just belligerent nitpickers who care more about arguing than about overcoming bias!” and so it’s useful to have more charitable possible explanations in mind.
Possibilities that hinge on the way you post are worth extra attention if you notice that people are responding that way to you but not to others. I don’t have a fully formed opinion on that, though, and so will ignore it in favor of generic possibilities. The first three that come to mind:
People are busy, and collaborate to conserve attention. Suppose A posts 5k words; B reads it and responds with “I think this is low quality for reason X,” then C can see the comment first and avoid spending time on the post. B can’t recover their lost time by writing the comment, but they can save C’s time, and by creating a culture of quality / calling out bad quality, they can have their time saved in the future. (This is more typically a role for karma, but comments also have a function here. Comments often remind people to vote, one way or another—one of my early posts was hovering at a very low score until someone commented that they thought the post was surprisingly good for its karma score, at which point it rocketed up about 10 points. It looks like a similar thing happened with this post.)
People are confused, and resolve their confusion by throwing it at other people. “Claim X seems wrong” is an invitation to point out that the claim is not actually X, but Y, that while X seems wrong it is actually right for reason Z, or that yes, X is wrong. Norms for resolving confusion vary widely across communities, and the sort of thing that one is encouraged to say publicly and immediately in one place might be the sort of thing one is encouraged to quietly contemplate, for years if necessary, in another place.
People are attempting to demonstrate their intelligence or compete for karma by identifying problems in posts.
There is a fourth possibility, which has to deal with openness vs. suspension of disbelief. Typically, I associate LWers with being more open than traditional skeptics, because LWers are more willing to run EV and VoI calculations and try things out that might not work or might be silly, where the standard skeptic is more interested in protecting themself from wrong beliefs. Underlying skepticism will naturally generate confrontational / standoffish behavior, because the skeptic is naturally standoffish when it comes to ideas, and their standards require surviving challenges that seem confrontational. It may be that LW has more skeptics than other communities you’re using as reference.
Perhaps it’s just the cynic in me talking, but of the reasons you posted, I find 3 the most compelling one by far.
Thanks, this is helpful.
I wasn’t talking about people’s responses to my posts specifically: I’ve had the same reaction to people’s comments on other people’s as well – I don’t see a difference on that front.
My intuitive response has been “these people are just belligerent nitpickers who care more about arguing than about overcoming bias!” and so it’s useful to have more charitable possible explanations in mind.