“it might make us look bad” is a horrible argument
You can argue that LessWrong shouldn’t care about PR, or that censorship is going to be bad PR, or that censorship is unnecessary, but you can’t argue that PR is a fundamentally horrible idea without some very strong evidence (which you did not provide).
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It’s almost tautological that if a group cares about PR, it HAS to care about what makes them look bad:
If Obama went on record saying that we should kill everyone on Less Wrong, and made it clear he was serious, I’d hope to high hell that there would be an impeachment trial.
If Greenpeace said we should kill all the oil CEOs, people would consider them insane terrorists.
If the oil CEOs suggested that there might be… incentives… should Greenpeace members be killed...
You can argue that LessWrong shouldn’t care about PR, or that censorship is going to be bad PR, or that censorship is unnecessary, but you can’t argue that PR is a fundamentally horrible idea without some very strong evidence (which you did not provide).
That was perhaps a bit of an overstatement on my part. Considering PR consequences of actions is certainly a good thing to do. But if PR concerns are driving your policy, rather than simply informing it, that’s bad.
Taboo “driving” and “informing” and explain the difference between those two to me?
Or we can save ourselves some time if this resolves your objection: Eliezer is saying that he is adding the OPTION to censor things if they are a PR problem OR because the person is needlessly incriminating themselves. I’m not sure how that’s a bad OPTION to have, given that he’s explicitly stated he will not mindlessly enforce it, and in fact has currently enforced it zero (0) times to my knowledge (the post that prompted this was voluntarily withdrawn by it’s author)
One the one hand, you’re deciding policy based on non-PR related factors, then thinking about the most PR friendly way to proceed from there. On the other hand, you’re letting PR actually determine policy.
Before I spend any more time replying to this, can you clarify for me… do you and I actually disagree about something of substance here? I.e. how an organization should, in the real world, deal with PR concerns? Or are we just arguing about the most technically correct way to go about stating our position?
You can argue that LessWrong shouldn’t care about PR, or that censorship is going to be bad PR, or that censorship is unnecessary, but you can’t argue that PR is a fundamentally horrible idea without some very strong evidence (which you did not provide).
-
It’s almost tautological that if a group cares about PR, it HAS to care about what makes them look bad:
If Obama went on record saying that we should kill everyone on Less Wrong, and made it clear he was serious, I’d hope to high hell that there would be an impeachment trial.
If Greenpeace said we should kill all the oil CEOs, people would consider them insane terrorists.
If the oil CEOs suggested that there might be… incentives… should Greenpeace members be killed...
That was perhaps a bit of an overstatement on my part. Considering PR consequences of actions is certainly a good thing to do. But if PR concerns are driving your policy, rather than simply informing it, that’s bad.
Taboo “driving” and “informing” and explain the difference between those two to me?
Or we can save ourselves some time if this resolves your objection: Eliezer is saying that he is adding the OPTION to censor things if they are a PR problem OR because the person is needlessly incriminating themselves. I’m not sure how that’s a bad OPTION to have, given that he’s explicitly stated he will not mindlessly enforce it, and in fact has currently enforced it zero (0) times to my knowledge (the post that prompted this was voluntarily withdrawn by it’s author)
One the one hand, you’re deciding policy based on non-PR related factors, then thinking about the most PR friendly way to proceed from there. On the other hand, you’re letting PR actually determine policy.
Which category is it if you decide based on multiple factors, ONE of which is PR? And why is this a bad thing, if that’s what you believe?
Before I spend any more time replying to this, can you clarify for me… do you and I actually disagree about something of substance here? I.e. how an organization should, in the real world, deal with PR concerns? Or are we just arguing about the most technically correct way to go about stating our position?