That’s implying a false equivalence. If I make a quotes page of a public person, a person with far-reaching goals, in order to highlight problematic beliefs this person holds, beliefs that would otherwise be lost in a vast amount of other statements, then this is not the same as making a “random stranger X sucks” page.
Then again, LW does not have a “Why Anything Sucks” page as far as I’m aware. There are plenty of people/organizations out there with whom LW/MIRI disagree, and who are more visible than you, but I don’t think LW has ever gone out of its way to make posts on why those people/organizations are bad. The fact is that in order to promote good discussion, you just don’t want to have a page saying that the members of website/organization with whom you’re having the discussion suck. (And while you might call it “highlighting problematic beliefs”, the simple fact is that much of what you’ve posted about LW/MIRI is mean-spirited and hurtful, both of which are qualities that I don’t think most “highlighting problematic beliefs” pages have.)
To be clear: much of your criticism is constructive criticism, possibly valid. Another significant portion is neither constructive nor valid. But regardless of whether it’s valid or not, you do not want to be rude or confrontational about it. If your intent is to improve LW/MIRI, then you want to phrase your criticisms in a way that makes them pleasant to engage with. From what I’ve been able to tell based on your posts and comments, both here and elsewhere, arguing with you is generally not a fun thing to do. Do you think people will be more receptive to stuff that’s phrased aggressively, or less receptive? I have very little to say on the object level in response to your concerns. However, if your goal is to foster improvement, then it’s probably a good idea to present the objections without the snideness. It makes it a lot more comfortable for both sides of the discussion if you do so.
You said that engaging in discussion with representatives of LW/MIRI is stressful for you. It doesn’t have to be.
I would not characterize that as a post about why philosophy “sucks”, though… more a post on its shortcomings and how they might be overcome. Maybe we’re just different in the way we interpret words, but in my view, “sucks” is connotatively a lot worse than “diseased”, because calling something “diseased” implies that there’s a “cure”, whereas “sucks” just… sucks.
(Edit: Huh. This comment seems to be getting pretty steadily downvoted. Is there something people didn’t like about it?)
You pattern-matched to “commenter refused to update on counterexample and is now in denial”. Also, people probably don’t want to end up in a dead-end argument about definitions of words.
Perhaps a better way would have been to keep the eye on the ball: never mind what “sucks” does or doesn’t mean, the original point of saying “we don’t have an X sucks page” was that we don’t have an axe to grind against any group of people in particular and keep attacking them in a mean-spirited ways that don’t promote good discussion. It would take thin skin indeed to feel personally attacked if you happen to work in philosophy and read that Diseased Discipline article. Nor would you feel, after browsing LW for a while, that the people behind it are devoting serious energy to coming up with bad things to say about you. This I think remains true even if we were to agree that we do have a couple “X sucks” pages.
Then again, LW does not have a “Why Anything Sucks” page as far as I’m aware. There are plenty of people/organizations out there with whom LW/MIRI disagree, and who are more visible than you, but I don’t think LW has ever gone out of its way to make posts on why those people/organizations are bad. The fact is that in order to promote good discussion, you just don’t want to have a page saying that the members of website/organization with whom you’re having the discussion suck. (And while you might call it “highlighting problematic beliefs”, the simple fact is that much of what you’ve posted about LW/MIRI is mean-spirited and hurtful, both of which are qualities that I don’t think most “highlighting problematic beliefs” pages have.)
To be clear: much of your criticism is constructive criticism, possibly valid. Another significant portion is neither constructive nor valid. But regardless of whether it’s valid or not, you do not want to be rude or confrontational about it. If your intent is to improve LW/MIRI, then you want to phrase your criticisms in a way that makes them pleasant to engage with. From what I’ve been able to tell based on your posts and comments, both here and elsewhere, arguing with you is generally not a fun thing to do. Do you think people will be more receptive to stuff that’s phrased aggressively, or less receptive? I have very little to say on the object level in response to your concerns. However, if your goal is to foster improvement, then it’s probably a good idea to present the objections without the snideness. It makes it a lot more comfortable for both sides of the discussion if you do so.
You said that engaging in discussion with representatives of LW/MIRI is stressful for you. It doesn’t have to be.
There is one about Stephen J. Gould, but I don’t remember any other.
Mainstream philosophy, maybe?
Ahem...Philosophy, a Diseased Discipline.
I would not characterize that as a post about why philosophy “sucks”, though… more a post on its shortcomings and how they might be overcome. Maybe we’re just different in the way we interpret words, but in my view, “sucks” is connotatively a lot worse than “diseased”, because calling something “diseased” implies that there’s a “cure”, whereas “sucks” just… sucks.
(Edit: Huh. This comment seems to be getting pretty steadily downvoted. Is there something people didn’t like about it?)
I didn’t downvote, but I’ll venture a guess:
You pattern-matched to “commenter refused to update on counterexample and is now in denial”. Also, people probably don’t want to end up in a dead-end argument about definitions of words.
Perhaps a better way would have been to keep the eye on the ball: never mind what “sucks” does or doesn’t mean, the original point of saying “we don’t have an X sucks page” was that we don’t have an axe to grind against any group of people in particular and keep attacking them in a mean-spirited ways that don’t promote good discussion. It would take thin skin indeed to feel personally attacked if you happen to work in philosophy and read that Diseased Discipline article. Nor would you feel, after browsing LW for a while, that the people behind it are devoting serious energy to coming up with bad things to say about you. This I think remains true even if we were to agree that we do have a couple “X sucks” pages.