I checked your comment history. The top comments at this moment start with:
Here’s why I don’t find your argument compelling (K 15)
These norms / rules make me slightly worried that (K 13)
Here’s why I disagree with the core claims of this post (K 7)
Sounds like evidence in favor of “disagree with people, get upvoted”.
On the other hand, your comments with karma below zero:
I’ve never enjoyed, or agreed with, arguments of the form (K −1)
I think that … would imply that … Personally, I think it’s pretty easy to show that … is wrong. (K −1)
I don’t think that … means that … (K −1)
So now it seems more like you disagree a lot (nothing wrong with that), and some of those comments get upvoted, and some of them don’t. The upvoted ones do not feel more condescending than the downvoted ones.
It seems to be historically the case that “doomers” or “near-doomers” [...] (K −9)
AFAIK, the Secretary-General is a full-time position, e.g., [...] (K −5)
Remove the word “AI” and I think this claim is not really changed in any way. AI systems are the most general systems. [...] (K −5)
The following is simply my own assessment of why these comments were downvoted. For the first one, I assume that it was because of the use of the term “doomers” in a pejorative sense. (This is closer, I believe, to what I called “low-key aggro” in my earlier comment.)
I am not sure why the second one was taken so poorly, and I imagine that whoever downvoted it would probably claim it to be snarkier or more disrespectful somehow than it actually was. This is unfortunate, because I think this serves as evidence that comments will often be downvoted because they could be interpreted to be more hostile or low-effort than they actually are. Alternatively, it was downvoted because it was “political.”
The third one is also unfortunate. Disagree-downvoting for that comment makes sense, but not karma-downvoting. If you were to counter that it was somehow 101-material or misunderstanding basic points, I would still have to strongly disagree with that.
My second-highest comment is about why I am worried about site-norms unfairly disfavoring discussions that disagree with major points that are commonly accepted on LessWrong or taken as catechism, so that should also support the idea that if such norms exist, you will observe that comments that do so also appear to be karma-downvoted, so as to limit their visibility and discourage discussion of those topics.
I checked your comment history. The top comments at this moment start with:
Sounds like evidence in favor of “disagree with people, get upvoted”.
On the other hand, your comments with karma below zero:
So now it seems more like you disagree a lot (nothing wrong with that), and some of those comments get upvoted, and some of them don’t. The upvoted ones do not feel more condescending than the downvoted ones.
Actually, my lowest three comments are:
The following is simply my own assessment of why these comments were downvoted. For the first one, I assume that it was because of the use of the term “doomers” in a pejorative sense. (This is closer, I believe, to what I called “low-key aggro” in my earlier comment.)
I am not sure why the second one was taken so poorly, and I imagine that whoever downvoted it would probably claim it to be snarkier or more disrespectful somehow than it actually was. This is unfortunate, because I think this serves as evidence that comments will often be downvoted because they could be interpreted to be more hostile or low-effort than they actually are. Alternatively, it was downvoted because it was “political.”
The third one is also unfortunate. Disagree-downvoting for that comment makes sense, but not karma-downvoting. If you were to counter that it was somehow 101-material or misunderstanding basic points, I would still have to strongly disagree with that.
My second-highest comment is about why I am worried about site-norms unfairly disfavoring discussions that disagree with major points that are commonly accepted on LessWrong or taken as catechism, so that should also support the idea that if such norms exist, you will observe that comments that do so also appear to be karma-downvoted, so as to limit their visibility and discourage discussion of those topics.
This still supports my main point, I believe.