that if someone was throwing into comments asides about how the Republican party was racist or sexist, or similar remarks, I’d downvote that person and they’d end up in a pretty similar situation.
The scenario he described happened, and the author did not end up in a similar situation as AA. Far from it, he was applauded.
It should be easy to see how these situations are different. A well-respected user made an article with a large amount of other content, and explicitly was trying their best to model a wide varity of people who they disagree with. (And mind you many people would likely upvote Kaj by default simply based on their general inclination. This clear happens with some of the more popular writers here. Heck, I’ve occasionally upvoted some of gwern’s posts before I’ve finished reading them). This is not the scenario in question where the comments are being put into repeated comments that have little or nothing to do with the topic at hand and where this is almost all the comments the user in question has. Kaj was specifically talking about how people think about politics and trying to be charitable (failing at properly doing so apparently but that’s not for lack of trying.) And now imagine Kaj kept doing shoving such comments in while going through apparently almost zero effort to actually respond to either questions or criticisms. That would be the scenario under discussion.
I (and I suspect many people here) would not react to you the way they’ve reacted to AA partially because you respond to comments and frankly when you do have political statements, they are generally more clearly laid out, more reasonable, and more interesting than the throw-away cheering remarks that AA has. I am however, surprised by how downvoted your initial comment was there- it does have serious issues such as the claim that Kaj doesn’t have regular conservative readers, but it is surprisingly downvoted; I do have to wonder if part of that is a status thing (Kaj being of relatively high status here and you being of status more in my range or slightly higher). However, that’s not a great explanation and it does make me update in the direction of their being some for lack of a better term, liberal pile-ons.
Incidentally, note that your guess that I had downvoted you in that thread was wrong: I had not seen that thread until it was pointed out here, and had not read Kaj’s piece either. So that prediction of yours was wrong. I’m curious, meanwhile, if you’ll take me up on my offer for a bet about your attitude about AA changing in the next few months.
It should be easy to see how these situations are different. A well-respected user made an article with a large amount of other content, and explicitly was trying their best to model a wide varity of people who they disagree with. (And mind you many people would likely upvote Kaj by default simply based on their general inclination. This clear happens with some of the more popular writers here. Heck, I’ve occasionally upvoted some of gwern’s posts before I’ve finished reading them). This is not the scenario in question where the comments are being put into repeated comments that have little or nothing to do with the topic at hand and where this is almost all the comments the user in question has. Kaj was specifically talking about how people think about politics and trying to be charitable (failing at properly doing so apparently but that’s not for lack of trying.) And now imagine Kaj kept doing shoving such comments in while going through apparently almost zero effort to actually respond to either questions or criticisms. That would be the scenario under discussion.
I (and I suspect many people here) would not react to you the way they’ve reacted to AA partially because you respond to comments and frankly when you do have political statements, they are generally more clearly laid out, more reasonable, and more interesting than the throw-away cheering remarks that AA has. I am however, surprised by how downvoted your initial comment was there- it does have serious issues such as the claim that Kaj doesn’t have regular conservative readers, but it is surprisingly downvoted; I do have to wonder if part of that is a status thing (Kaj being of relatively high status here and you being of status more in my range or slightly higher). However, that’s not a great explanation and it does make me update in the direction of their being some for lack of a better term, liberal pile-ons.
Incidentally, note that your guess that I had downvoted you in that thread was wrong: I had not seen that thread until it was pointed out here, and had not read Kaj’s piece either. So that prediction of yours was wrong. I’m curious, meanwhile, if you’ll take me up on my offer for a bet about your attitude about AA changing in the next few months.