Good point. I dono, maybe almost everything really is about status. But some things seem to have a much stronger influence on status than others, and some are perceived as much larger threats than others, regardless of whether those perceptions are accurate outside of our evolutionary environment.
Even if everything has a nonzero status component, so long as there is variation we’d need a theory to explain the various sources of that variation. I was trying to gesture at situations where the status loss was large (high severity) and would inevitably happen to at least one side (large scope, relative to audience size).
Change My View (the source I thought might make a good proxy for LW with politics) has a list of common topics. I think they span both the scope and severity range.
Abortion/Legal Parental Surrender: Small scope, high severity. If discussed in the abstract, think mostly only people who’ve had abortions are likely to loose status if they let a statement stand that infers that they made a bad decision. If the discussion branches out to body autonomy, though, this would be a threat to anyone who might be prevented from having one or have tribal members who would be prevented.
Climate Change: Low scope, low severity. Maybe some climatologists will always loose status by letting false statements stand, but most other people’s status is about as divorced from the topic as it’s possible to be. Maybe there’s a tiny status hit from the inference that you’re a bad person if you’re not helping, which motivates a defensive desire to deny it’s really a problem. But both scope of people with status ties and the severity of status losses are about zero.
Donald Trump: If I say “Donald Trump is 1.88m tall” no one looses any status, so that topic is low-scope, low-severity. that’s defining him as a topic overly narrowly, though. There certainly are a surprisingly large number of extremely inflammatory topics immediately adjacent. The topic of whether he’s doing a good job will inevitably be a status hit for either people who voted for him or against him, since at least one side had to have made a poor decision. But not everyone votes, so the scope is maybe medium sized. The severity depends on the magnitude of the particular criticism/praise.
Feminism: Judgments make feminists look bad, but I don’t really know what fraction of people identify as feminist, so I don’t quite know how to rate the scope. Probably medium-ish? Again, severity depends on the strength of the criticism. And of course specific feminist issues may have status implications for a different fraction of people in the discussion.
I could continue for the rest of the common topics on the list, but I think I’m repeating myself. I’m having a hard time selecting words to precisely define the exact concepts I’m pointing at though, so maybe more examples would help triangulate meaning?
So you’ve listed a few topics. How likely is each of them to result in demon threads? I can easily see people furiously arguing about any of those, I doubt there is much variation between them. The fact that many people happen to have opinions on these topics (i.e. that they are common in CMV) seems more relevant than any reality-based measure of their importance. Consider also more niche topics such as “best programming language” that sometimes also result in demon threads (though, to be fair, I haven’t personally seen any recently), while having objectively no impact on the real world.
maybe almost everything really is about status
No, it’s not that everything is “about status”, it’s that “about status” is just an obtuse way to say “people care”. Every interaction between two people is by definition social, and LW is very happy to reduce all social interactions to status comparisons. But what exactly does that explain?
I can easily see people furiously arguing about any of those, I doubt there is much variation between them.
My prediction is that almost no discussion that starts about whether Donald Trump is 1.88m tall should turn into a demon thread, unless someone first changes the topic to something else.
Similarly, the details of climate change itself should start fewer object-level arguments. I would first expect to see a transition to (admitedly closely related) topics like climate change deniers and/or gullible liberals. Sure, people may then pull out the charts and links on the object level issue, but the subtext is then ”...and therefore the outgroup are idiots/the ingroup isn’t dumb”.
We could test this by seeing whether strict and immediate moderator action prevents demon threads if it’s done as soon as discussion drifts into inherently-about-status topics. I think if so, we could safely discuss status-adjacent topics without anywhere near as many incidents. (Although I don’t actually think there’s much value in such discussions most of the time, so I wouldn’t advocate for a rule change to allow them.)
no discussion that starts about whether Donald Trump is 1.88m tall should turn into a demon thread
Trump’s height is definitely not why “Donald Trump” is a common topic in CMV, so I don’t see how that’s relevant. On the other hand, such trivial fact based topics can easily become demonic—consider birtherism. If there was a subset of population that believed “Trump is actually 1.87m tall”, this could easily lead to demon threads. There is nothing inherent about height that prevents it from being a demon topic.
Similarly, the details of climate change itself should start fewer object-level arguments.
Object level disagreements about climate change are definitely a big part of why it’s a common topic and why it might cause demon threads. Of course, the argument eventually involves insulting the outgroup, but that’s hardly a topic.
We could test this by seeing whether strict and immediate moderator action prevents demon threads if it’s done as soon as discussion drifts into inherently-about-status topics
This is based on the assumption that some topics really are inherently about status. My claim is that topic popularity is a decent predictor of demonic threads, and that your status related evaluations add very little to that.
Good point. I dono, maybe almost everything really is about status. But some things seem to have a much stronger influence on status than others, and some are perceived as much larger threats than others, regardless of whether those perceptions are accurate outside of our evolutionary environment.
Even if everything has a nonzero status component, so long as there is variation we’d need a theory to explain the various sources of that variation. I was trying to gesture at situations where the status loss was large (high severity) and would inevitably happen to at least one side (large scope, relative to audience size).
Change My View (the source I thought might make a good proxy for LW with politics) has a list of common topics. I think they span both the scope and severity range.
Abortion/Legal Parental Surrender: Small scope, high severity. If discussed in the abstract, think mostly only people who’ve had abortions are likely to loose status if they let a statement stand that infers that they made a bad decision. If the discussion branches out to body autonomy, though, this would be a threat to anyone who might be prevented from having one or have tribal members who would be prevented.
Climate Change: Low scope, low severity. Maybe some climatologists will always loose status by letting false statements stand, but most other people’s status is about as divorced from the topic as it’s possible to be. Maybe there’s a tiny status hit from the inference that you’re a bad person if you’re not helping, which motivates a defensive desire to deny it’s really a problem. But both scope of people with status ties and the severity of status losses are about zero.
Donald Trump: If I say “Donald Trump is 1.88m tall” no one looses any status, so that topic is low-scope, low-severity. that’s defining him as a topic overly narrowly, though. There certainly are a surprisingly large number of extremely inflammatory topics immediately adjacent. The topic of whether he’s doing a good job will inevitably be a status hit for either people who voted for him or against him, since at least one side had to have made a poor decision. But not everyone votes, so the scope is maybe medium sized. The severity depends on the magnitude of the particular criticism/praise.
Feminism: Judgments make feminists look bad, but I don’t really know what fraction of people identify as feminist, so I don’t quite know how to rate the scope. Probably medium-ish? Again, severity depends on the strength of the criticism. And of course specific feminist issues may have status implications for a different fraction of people in the discussion.
I could continue for the rest of the common topics on the list, but I think I’m repeating myself. I’m having a hard time selecting words to precisely define the exact concepts I’m pointing at though, so maybe more examples would help triangulate meaning?
So you’ve listed a few topics. How likely is each of them to result in demon threads? I can easily see people furiously arguing about any of those, I doubt there is much variation between them. The fact that many people happen to have opinions on these topics (i.e. that they are common in CMV) seems more relevant than any reality-based measure of their importance. Consider also more niche topics such as “best programming language” that sometimes also result in demon threads (though, to be fair, I haven’t personally seen any recently), while having objectively no impact on the real world.
No, it’s not that everything is “about status”, it’s that “about status” is just an obtuse way to say “people care”. Every interaction between two people is by definition social, and LW is very happy to reduce all social interactions to status comparisons. But what exactly does that explain?
My prediction is that almost no discussion that starts about whether Donald Trump is 1.88m tall should turn into a demon thread, unless someone first changes the topic to something else.
Similarly, the details of climate change itself should start fewer object-level arguments. I would first expect to see a transition to (admitedly closely related) topics like climate change deniers and/or gullible liberals. Sure, people may then pull out the charts and links on the object level issue, but the subtext is then ”...and therefore the outgroup are idiots/the ingroup isn’t dumb”.
We could test this by seeing whether strict and immediate moderator action prevents demon threads if it’s done as soon as discussion drifts into inherently-about-status topics. I think if so, we could safely discuss status-adjacent topics without anywhere near as many incidents. (Although I don’t actually think there’s much value in such discussions most of the time, so I wouldn’t advocate for a rule change to allow them.)
Trump’s height is definitely not why “Donald Trump” is a common topic in CMV, so I don’t see how that’s relevant. On the other hand, such trivial fact based topics can easily become demonic—consider birtherism. If there was a subset of population that believed “Trump is actually 1.87m tall”, this could easily lead to demon threads. There is nothing inherent about height that prevents it from being a demon topic.
Object level disagreements about climate change are definitely a big part of why it’s a common topic and why it might cause demon threads. Of course, the argument eventually involves insulting the outgroup, but that’s hardly a topic.
This is based on the assumption that some topics really are inherently about status. My claim is that topic popularity is a decent predictor of demonic threads, and that your status related evaluations add very little to that.