What I’ve been noticing is that right now, Slatestarcodex is sort of the place people go to talk about politics in a rationality-infused setting, and the comments there have been trending in the direction you’d caution about. (I’m not sure whether to be sad about that or glad that there’s a designated place for political fighting)
Well, I think it’s true, interesting, and useful :)
The argument is a specific case of a more general form (explaining changing group dynamics by selection into the group, driven by the norms of the group, but without the norms necessarily causing a direct change to any individual’s behavior) which I think is a powerful pattern to understand. But like a lot of social dynamics, explicitly pointing it out can be tricky, because it can make the speaker seem snooty or Machiavellian or tactless, and because it can insult large classes of people, possibly including current group members. I felt that LW is one of the few places where I could voice this type of argument and get a charitable reception (after all, I’m indirectly insulting everyone who likes to talk politics, which is most people, including me :P)
To be clear: I don’t think lesswrong is currently being hurt by this dynamic. But I do see periodic comments criticizing the use of only internal risks (mind-killing ourselves) as the justification for avoiding political topics. I’m sympathetic to some of these critiques, and I wanted to promote a reason to avoiding political topics that didn’t imply that mind-killing susceptibility was somehow an insurmountable problem for individuals.
Homeostasis of social communities is a very interesting topic. Let me just point out that there are dangers on all sides—you don’t want to be at the mercy of every wandering band of barbarians, but you also don’t want to become an inbred group locked up high in an ivory tower.
SSC is one-person dictatorship with a benevolent dictator. It would be much worse there if people could play voting games in comments: upvoting everyone on their “side” and downvoting everyone on the opposing “side”.
Also, on SSC people are banned more often than on LW, although most of the bans are temporary.
What I’ve been noticing is that right now, Slatestarcodex is sort of the place people go to talk about politics in a rationality-infused setting, and the comments there have been trending in the direction you’d caution about. (I’m not sure whether to be sad about that or glad that there’s a designated place for political fighting)
I would be very sad if LW comments went the way of Slate Star Codex comments.
I’m a bit curious what prompted you to post this?
What I’ve been noticing is that right now, Slatestarcodex is sort of the place people go to talk about politics in a rationality-infused setting, and the comments there have been trending in the direction you’d caution about. (I’m not sure whether to be sad about that or glad that there’s a designated place for political fighting)
Well, I think it’s true, interesting, and useful :)
The argument is a specific case of a more general form (explaining changing group dynamics by selection into the group, driven by the norms of the group, but without the norms necessarily causing a direct change to any individual’s behavior) which I think is a powerful pattern to understand. But like a lot of social dynamics, explicitly pointing it out can be tricky, because it can make the speaker seem snooty or Machiavellian or tactless, and because it can insult large classes of people, possibly including current group members. I felt that LW is one of the few places where I could voice this type of argument and get a charitable reception (after all, I’m indirectly insulting everyone who likes to talk politics, which is most people, including me :P)
To be clear: I don’t think lesswrong is currently being hurt by this dynamic. But I do see periodic comments criticizing the use of only internal risks (mind-killing ourselves) as the justification for avoiding political topics. I’m sympathetic to some of these critiques, and I wanted to promote a reason to avoiding political topics that didn’t imply that mind-killing susceptibility was somehow an insurmountable problem for individuals.
Homeostasis of social communities is a very interesting topic. Let me just point out that there are dangers on all sides—you don’t want to be at the mercy of every wandering band of barbarians, but you also don’t want to become an inbred group locked up high in an ivory tower.
SSC is one-person dictatorship with a benevolent dictator. It would be much worse there if people could play voting games in comments: upvoting everyone on their “side” and downvoting everyone on the opposing “side”.
Also, on SSC people are banned more often than on LW, although most of the bans are temporary.
I would be very sad if LW comments went the way of Slate Star Codex comments.
I hadn’t noticed a trend of political posts on LW, so hadn’t been worried about this specific phenomenon.