EY has publicly posted material that is intended to provoke thought on the possibility of legalizing rape (which is considered a form of violence). If he believed that there was positive utility in considering such questions before, then he must consider them to have some positive utility now, and determining whether the negative utility outweighs that is always a difficult question. This is why I will be opposed to any sort of zero tolerance policy in which the things to be censored is not well-defined a definite impediment to balanced and rationally-considered discussion. It’s clear to me that speaking about violence against a particular person or persons is far more likely to have negative consequences on balance, but discussion of the commission of crimes in general seems like something that should be weighed on a case-by-case basis.
In general, I prefer my moderators to have a fuzzy set of broad guidelines about what should be censored in which not deleting is the default position, and they actually have to decide that it is definitely bad before they take the delete action. The guidelines can be used to raise posts to the level of this consideration and influence their judgment on this decision, but they should never be able to say “the rules say this type of thing should be deleted!”
EY has publicly posted material that is intended to provoke thought on the possibility of legalizing rape (which is considered a form of violence)
I’m not sure how this is relevant; there’s a good bit of difference between discussion of breaking a law and discussion of changing it. That said, I think I’m reading this differently than most in the thread. I’m understanding it as aimed against hypotheticals that are really “hypotheticals”.
In answer to the question that was actually asked in the post, here is a non-obvious consequence: My impression of the atheist/libertarian/geek personspace cluster that makes up much of LW’s readership is that they’re generally hostile to anything that smells like conflating “legal” with “okay”; and also to the idea that they should change their behavior to suit the rest of the world. You might find you’re making LW less off-putting to the mainstream at the cost of making it less attractive to its core audience. (but you might consider it worth that cost)
As both a relatively new contributor and a member of said cluster, this policy makes me somewhat uncomfortable at first glance. Whether that generalizes to other potential new contributors, I cannot say. I present it as proof-of-concept only.
IAWYC, but that was a story set in the far future with a discussion that makes clear (to me at least) that our present is so different from that that the author wouldn’t ever even dream of suggesting to do anything remotely like that in our times. It isn’t remotely similar to (what Poe’s Law predicts people will get from) the recent suggestion about tobacco CEOs.
EY has publicly posted material that is intended to provoke thought on the possibility of legalizing rape (which is considered a form of violence).
That’s an… interesting way of putting it, where by “interesting” I mean “wrong”. I could go off on how the idea is that there’s particular modern-day people who actually exist and that you’re threatening to harm, and how a future society where different things feel harmful is not that, but you know, screw it.
This is why I will be opposed to any sort of zero tolerance policy
The ‘rules’ do not ‘mandate’ that I delete anything. They hardly could. I’m just, before I start deleting things, giving people fair notice that this is what I’m considering doing, and offering them a chance to say anything I might have missed about why it’s a terrible idea.
That’s an… interesting way of putting it, where by “interesting” I mean “wrong”.
If you genuinely can’t see how similar considerations apply to you personally publishing rape-world stories and the reasoning you explicitly gave in the post then I suggest you have a real weakness in evaluating the consequences of your own actions on perception.
I could go off on how the idea is that there’s particular modern-day people who actually exist and that you’re threatening to harm, and how a future society where different things feel harmful is not that, but you know, screw it.
I approve of your Three Worlds Collide story (in fact, I love it). I also approve of your censorship proposal/plan. I also believe there is no need to self censor that story (particularly at the position you were when you published it). That said:
This kind of display of evident obliviousness and arrogant dismissal rather than engagement or—preferably—even just outright ignoring it may well do more to make Lesswrong look bad than half a dozen half baked speculative posts by CronoDAS. There are times to say “but you know, screw it” and “where by interesting I mean wrong” but those times don’t include when concern is raised about your legalised-rape-and-it’s-great story in the context of your own “censor hypothetical violence ’cause it sounds bad” post.
That’s an… interesting way of putting it, where by “interesting” I mean “wrong”. I could go off on how the idea is that there’s particular modern-day people who actually exist and that you’re threatening to harm, and how a future society where different things feel harmful is not that, but you know, screw it.
So if I suggest killing people in the context of futurism, that’s OK with you?
This seems to me like a deliberate misunderstanding. But taking it at face value, a story in which violence is committed against targets not analogous to any present-day identifiable people, or which is not committed for any reasons obviously analogous to present-day motives, is fine. The Sword of Good is not advocating for killing wizards who kill orcs, although Dolf does get his head cut off. Betrayed-spouse murder mysteries are not advocating killing adulterers—though it would be different if you named the victim after a specific celebrity and depicted the killer in a sympathetic light. As much as people who don’t like this policy, might wish that it were impossible for anyone to tell the difference so that they could thereby argue against the policy, it’s not actually very hard to tell the difference.
As much as people who don’t like this policy, might wish that it were impossible for anyone to tell the difference so that they could thereby argue against the policy, it’s not actually very hard to tell the difference.
I didn’t interpret CronoDAS’s post as intending to actually advocate violence. I viewed it as really silly and kind of dickish, and a good thing that he ultimately removed it, but an actual call to violence? No. It was a thought experiment. His thought experiment was set in the present day, while yours was set in the far future, but other than that I don’t see a bright line separating them.
It may not be be very hard for you to tell the difference, since you wrote the policy, so you may very well have a clear bright line separating the two in your head, but we don’t.
a story in which violence is committed against targets not analogous to any present-day identifiable people, or which is not committed for any reasons obviously analogous to present-day motives, is fine
I was unsure if people who do not currently exist might also be considered “identifiable real-world individuals”, if discussed in the context of futurism. Thank you for clarifying.
If he believed that there was positive utility in considering such questions before, then he must consider them to have some positive utility now, and determining whether the negative utility outweighs that is always a difficult question.
He was in a different position then. Trying to gain reputation for being an original thinker requires different public outputs than attempting to earn mainstream recognition of the origanisation one is the head of.
EY has publicly posted material that is intended to provoke thought on the possibility of legalizing rape
This looks like a complete misinterpretation, albeit one I’ve seen several times. The context of this is the novella Three Worlds Collide. (Spoilers follow). In that story humans meet two races of aliens with incompatible values, the babyeaters and the superhappies. The superhappies demand to modify human values to be more compatible with their own; and the author’s perspective is that this would be a very bad thing, worth sacrificing billions of lives to prevent. This is the focus of the story.
Then we find out that in this universe, rape has been legalized, and it’s only a little more than a throwaway remark. What are we to make of this? Well, it’s a concrete example of why changing human values would be bad. Which, given the overall story, seems like the obvious intended interpretation. But hey, male author mentioning rape—let’s all be offended! His condemnation of it wasn’t strong enough!
EY has publicly posted material that is intended to provoke thought on the possibility of legalizing rape (which is considered a form of violence). If he believed that there was positive utility in considering such questions before, then he must consider them to have some positive utility now, and determining whether the negative utility outweighs that is always a difficult question. This is why I will be opposed to any sort of zero tolerance policy in which the things to be censored is not well-defined a definite impediment to balanced and rationally-considered discussion. It’s clear to me that speaking about violence against a particular person or persons is far more likely to have negative consequences on balance, but discussion of the commission of crimes in general seems like something that should be weighed on a case-by-case basis.
In general, I prefer my moderators to have a fuzzy set of broad guidelines about what should be censored in which not deleting is the default position, and they actually have to decide that it is definitely bad before they take the delete action. The guidelines can be used to raise posts to the level of this consideration and influence their judgment on this decision, but they should never be able to say “the rules say this type of thing should be deleted!”
I’m not sure how this is relevant; there’s a good bit of difference between discussion of breaking a law and discussion of changing it. That said, I think I’m reading this differently than most in the thread. I’m understanding it as aimed against hypotheticals that are really “hypotheticals”.
In answer to the question that was actually asked in the post, here is a non-obvious consequence: My impression of the atheist/libertarian/geek personspace cluster that makes up much of LW’s readership is that they’re generally hostile to anything that smells like conflating “legal” with “okay”; and also to the idea that they should change their behavior to suit the rest of the world. You might find you’re making LW less off-putting to the mainstream at the cost of making it less attractive to its core audience. (but you might consider it worth that cost)
As both a relatively new contributor and a member of said cluster, this policy makes me somewhat uncomfortable at first glance. Whether that generalizes to other potential new contributors, I cannot say. I present it as proof-of-concept only.
IAWYC, but that was a story set in the far future with a discussion that makes clear (to me at least) that our present is so different from that that the author wouldn’t ever even dream of suggesting to do anything remotely like that in our times. It isn’t remotely similar to (what Poe’s Law predicts people will get from) the recent suggestion about tobacco CEOs.
That’s an… interesting way of putting it, where by “interesting” I mean “wrong”. I could go off on how the idea is that there’s particular modern-day people who actually exist and that you’re threatening to harm, and how a future society where different things feel harmful is not that, but you know, screw it.
The ‘rules’ do not ‘mandate’ that I delete anything. They hardly could. I’m just, before I start deleting things, giving people fair notice that this is what I’m considering doing, and offering them a chance to say anything I might have missed about why it’s a terrible idea.
If you genuinely can’t see how similar considerations apply to you personally publishing rape-world stories and the reasoning you explicitly gave in the post then I suggest you have a real weakness in evaluating the consequences of your own actions on perception.
I approve of your Three Worlds Collide story (in fact, I love it). I also approve of your censorship proposal/plan. I also believe there is no need to self censor that story (particularly at the position you were when you published it). That said:
This kind of display of evident obliviousness and arrogant dismissal rather than engagement or—preferably—even just outright ignoring it may well do more to make Lesswrong look bad than half a dozen half baked speculative posts by CronoDAS. There are times to say “but you know, screw it” and “where by interesting I mean wrong” but those times don’t include when concern is raised about your legalised-rape-and-it’s-great story in the context of your own “censor hypothetical violence ’cause it sounds bad” post.
So if I suggest killing people in the context of futurism, that’s OK with you?
This seems to me like a deliberate misunderstanding. But taking it at face value, a story in which violence is committed against targets not analogous to any present-day identifiable people, or which is not committed for any reasons obviously analogous to present-day motives, is fine. The Sword of Good is not advocating for killing wizards who kill orcs, although Dolf does get his head cut off. Betrayed-spouse murder mysteries are not advocating killing adulterers—though it would be different if you named the victim after a specific celebrity and depicted the killer in a sympathetic light. As much as people who don’t like this policy, might wish that it were impossible for anyone to tell the difference so that they could thereby argue against the policy, it’s not actually very hard to tell the difference.
I didn’t interpret CronoDAS’s post as intending to actually advocate violence. I viewed it as really silly and kind of dickish, and a good thing that he ultimately removed it, but an actual call to violence? No. It was a thought experiment. His thought experiment was set in the present day, while yours was set in the far future, but other than that I don’t see a bright line separating them.
It may not be be very hard for you to tell the difference, since you wrote the policy, so you may very well have a clear bright line separating the two in your head, but we don’t.
I was unsure if people who do not currently exist might also be considered “identifiable real-world individuals”, if discussed in the context of futurism. Thank you for clarifying.
He was in a different position then. Trying to gain reputation for being an original thinker requires different public outputs than attempting to earn mainstream recognition of the origanisation one is the head of.
This looks like a complete misinterpretation, albeit one I’ve seen several times. The context of this is the novella Three Worlds Collide. (Spoilers follow). In that story humans meet two races of aliens with incompatible values, the babyeaters and the superhappies. The superhappies demand to modify human values to be more compatible with their own; and the author’s perspective is that this would be a very bad thing, worth sacrificing billions of lives to prevent. This is the focus of the story.
Then we find out that in this universe, rape has been legalized, and it’s only a little more than a throwaway remark. What are we to make of this? Well, it’s a concrete example of why changing human values would be bad. Which, given the overall story, seems like the obvious intended interpretation. But hey, male author mentioning rape—let’s all be offended! His condemnation of it wasn’t strong enough!
Who said anything about being offended?