Getting five downvotes on this immediately after posting is bizarre, and I’d appreciate explanations from other people, except most likely they’re just part of an anti-PhilGoetz contingent.
Having successfully asked for similar explanations before, I feel obligated to answer this. I downvoted this post because 1. the topic is known to be heavily mindkilling, 2. the post is devoid of the sort of context that might make it interesting, and 3. the motivation behind the post appeared to stem from a “My political enemies are Wrong on the Internet” mentality. I come here to get away from that sort of thing, not invite it.
Posting in Main did not help, although I think I would have downvoted it anyway.
For context, I don’t attach any particular good or bad affect to you as PhilGoetz. I’ve seen both good and bad posts from you, although perhaps higher variance in that respect than most. This one seemed sufficiently trolly that I considered asking if someone had hijacked your account. It was only after checking your recent post history and noting this that I concluded it was probably legit. That suggests my opinion of you as a poster is considerably higher than my opinion of this specific post.
Also for context, my affect for the tribe you’re attacking (or, perhaps, counterattacking) is neutral-to-slightly-negative—an affect borne of opinions that cancel out rather than a simple lack of same.
Without explanation, your downvotes do nothing except further convince me of the LessWrong community’s irrationality and/or Machiavellan standards of behavior.
That is a fact about you, not about the downvotes. If you don’t understand the downvotes, by all means ask, but don’t follow up with “if you don’t answer I’ll think bad things about you.” That’s appealing to exactly the same monkey brain crap that I thought we were trying to outwit, not encourage.
[Edited to add: I should modify complaint #2 above. Your post-downvote addition actually is interesting, although #1 and perhaps #3 would still apply. I’m not revoking the downvote, but you may be able to learn something by comparing that to what came before.]
Having successfully asked for similar explanations before, I feel obligated to answer this. I downvoted this post because 1. the topic is known to be heavily mindkilling, 2. the post is devoid of the sort of context that might make it interesting, and 3. the motivation behind the post appeared to stem from a “My political enemies are Wrong on the Internet” mentality. I come here to get away from that sort of thing, not invite it.
Posting in Main did not help, although I think I would have downvoted it anyway.
For context, I don’t attach any particular good or bad affect to you as PhilGoetz. I’ve seen both good and bad posts from you, although perhaps higher variance in that respect than most. This one seemed sufficiently trolly that I considered asking if someone had hijacked your account. It was only after checking your recent post history and noting this that I concluded it was probably legit. That suggests my opinion of you as a poster is considerably higher than my opinion of this specific post.
Also for context, my affect for the tribe you’re attacking (or, perhaps, counterattacking) is neutral-to-slightly-negative—an affect borne of opinions that cancel out rather than a simple lack of same.
That is a fact about you, not about the downvotes. If you don’t understand the downvotes, by all means ask, but don’t follow up with “if you don’t answer I’ll think bad things about you.” That’s appealing to exactly the same monkey brain crap that I thought we were trying to outwit, not encourage.
[Edited to add: I should modify complaint #2 above. Your post-downvote addition actually is interesting, although #1 and perhaps #3 would still apply. I’m not revoking the downvote, but you may be able to learn something by comparing that to what came before.]