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.
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.