I agree that LW shouldn’t become a news site and that Ukraine discussion risks a slippery slope. I also had a phone call with a LW reader who was considering fleeting Russia. People are desperate for reliable information over there and LW is a good (in its own quirky way) source of information.
I propose the following guidelines: Frontpaging political news should be an emergency measure, to be taken only when the following three criteria are met and no more than once per year (on average) unless the Singularity hits:
You can take action as an individual. (It’s not a call to collective action.)
Action must be taken immediately. Failing to take action could ruin your life (or produce an equivalently positive outcome).
The information is under-reported and/or systematically suppressed by a powerful state actor.
Russia closing its borders easily satisfies all of the above criteria. Judging by recent history, events passing the above threshold happen no more than once every two years (on average).
Closing borders qualifies. A lethal disease escaping containment would qualify. The Holocaust would qualify.
Even if Russia’s borders remain open, I believe you [Raemon, moderator] made the right decision. The whole purpose of rationality is to make good decisions, especially in conditions of extreme uncertainty and great consequence. To win at no-limit poker you must play tight and aggressive. In this context, playing “tight” means avoiding frontpaging news >99% of the time. To maximize signal, we must also bet aggressively in that rare <1%.
I believe there is nothing wrong or irrational about taking collective action or calling to it. On the contrary, a culture that prohibited collective action has failed at instrumental rationality and is about to be conquered by a culture that didn’t. So I am strongly opposed to your first suggested rule.
Yes, I believe we shouldn’t get involved in politics if it endangers alignment research efforts or otherwise hurts the community for little gain. But we should take collective actions which carry negligible risks and huge expected benefits. Rationality is about winning. Being divided makes us weak and less likely to win. Let’s not do this.
Worth noting that we’ve massively overshot the “once per year” mark, with regards to frontpaging a lot of covid content. (I think this was plausibly bad, but not obviously so)
I like the general principles here, though still not sure about practicalities. I do very much like the “individual action is clearly useful” idea.
The “individual action is clearly useful” heuristic does two jobs. It disqualifies both non-actionable information and political campaigns.
Worth noting that we’ve massively overshot the “once per year” mark, with regards to frontpaging a lot of covid content. (I think this was plausibly bad, but not obviously so)
Too far in either direction would be a mistake. “No news” implies “never post urgent actionable information”. “Allow news” runs into Lindy. It is a question of calibration. There is a window of reasonable calibrations. I think LW’s decisions fall into that window.
I agree that LW shouldn’t become a news site and that Ukraine discussion risks a slippery slope. I also had a phone call with a LW reader who was considering fleeting Russia. People are desperate for reliable information over there and LW is a good (in its own quirky way) source of information.
I propose the following guidelines: Frontpaging political news should be an emergency measure, to be taken only when the following three criteria are met
and no more than once per year (on average) unless the Singularity hits:You can take action as an individual. (It’s not a call to collective action.)
Action must be taken immediately. Failing to take action could ruin your life (or produce an equivalently positive outcome).
The information is under-reported and/or systematically suppressed by a powerful state actor.
Russia closing its borders easily satisfies all of the above criteria. Judging by recent history, events passing the above threshold happen no more than once every two years (on average).
Closing borders qualifies. A lethal disease escaping containment would qualify. The Holocaust would qualify.
Even if Russia’s borders remain open, I believe you [Raemon, moderator] made the right decision. The whole purpose of rationality is to make good decisions, especially in conditions of extreme uncertainty and great consequence. To win at no-limit poker you must play tight and aggressive. In this context, playing “tight” means avoiding frontpaging news >99% of the time. To maximize signal, we must also bet aggressively in that rare <1%.
I believe there is nothing wrong or irrational about taking collective action or calling to it. On the contrary, a culture that prohibited collective action has failed at instrumental rationality and is about to be conquered by a culture that didn’t. So I am strongly opposed to your first suggested rule.
Yes, I believe we shouldn’t get involved in politics if it endangers alignment research efforts or otherwise hurts the community for little gain. But we should take collective actions which carry negligible risks and huge expected benefits. Rationality is about winning. Being divided makes us weak and less likely to win. Let’s not do this.
Worth noting that we’ve massively overshot the “once per year” mark, with regards to frontpaging a lot of covid content. (I think this was plausibly bad, but not obviously so)
I like the general principles here, though still not sure about practicalities. I do very much like the “individual action is clearly useful” idea.
The “individual action is clearly useful” heuristic does two jobs. It disqualifies both non-actionable information and political campaigns.
Too far in either direction would be a mistake. “No news” implies “never post urgent actionable information”. “Allow news” runs into Lindy. It is a question of calibration. There is a window of reasonable calibrations. I think LW’s decisions fall into that window.
Sure, just noting that you just said “once a year”, and we did it like 50 times last year or something.
Duly noted. I did write “once a year”. I feel “once per week” is fine too.
Those… feel sufficiently different that I’m not sure what the point of even having a restriction would be.
I feel “once per day” (on average, over time) would be too permissive.
I have modified my original comment to remove the “once per year” restriction.