Reason 1: Because I think that there’s some chance (maybe not very large) that if an LW denizen is wrong about something and gets snarked at, it may be what they need to improve; and that for any given quantity of snark this effect will be larger if the snark is aimed at a larger deserving subpopulation of LW; so that if there are more people wrong in way A and fewer wrong in way B, snarking about A is more likely to do good than snarking about B.
And, in the present instance, for reasons already discussed I think LW has more people in need of anti-far-right snark than people in need of anti-far-left snark.
(Of course—I repeat myself—if you’re snarking just for the fun of snarking then you needn’t care about that. And perhaps the chances of any good ever coming of snarking at anyone are negligible.)
Reason 2: Because if LW is welcoming to people in group A and hostile to people in group B, these groups playing roughly symmetrical roles on opposite ends of some spectrum, there is a risk of a positive-feedback loop that pushes LW further and further in the A direction and away from the B direction until it becomes severely and unfixably partisan, which (as you have already remarked) is not how LW is supposed to work and (as you haven’t remarked but I think is true) makes LW a less interesting and useful place by decreasing its intellectual diversity.
And, in the present instance, for reasons already discussed I think LW is welcoming to rightists and hostile to leftists. If so, then shifting that balance a bit would reduce the danger.
(How real is the danger? I don’t know. Maybe less real since the More Right folks left LW. Still there, though, I think.)
(An important note that perhaps I should have written some time ago: all this left/right stuff is of course a crude but useful one-dimensional simplification of reality and if taken too seriously raises the risk of the kind of us-versus-them thinking that we’re all too familiar with. And the axis we’re really looking at here doesn’t exactly correspond to the usual left/right political axis—it’s much more concerned with social, and less with economic, issues. Please be assured that I understand all this and am using terms like “left” and “right” only as a convenient shorthand.)
so that if there are more people wrong in way A and fewer wrong in way B, snarking about A is more likely to do good than snarking about B.
I am sorry, my life’s purpose is not to bring balance to the universe, one forum at a time. I am not in the re-education business.
for reasons already discussed I think LW has more people in need of anti-far-right snark than people in need of anti-far-left snark.
Well, go for it :-) As I already noted, I don’t think so.
there is a risk of a positive-feedback loop that pushes LW further and further in the A direction and away from the B direction until it becomes severely and unfixably partisan
Given that NRx used to inhabit LW and then almost all of them went away while LW stayed as it is, I consider this risk negligible. Unless, of course, direction A is leftward :-D
Also, don’t forget that LW is populated mostly by Americans. From the European point of view, both US Democrats and US Republicans are right-of-centre.
And the axis we’re really looking at here...
I don’t know which axis are we looking at. Is there an axis at all or you just dont’ like a particular thought cluster?
my life’s purpose is not to bring balance to the universe, one forum at a time.
Fair enough! As I said: you aren’t obliged to care about this stuff.
I don’t know which axis are we looking at.
Take one of those political questionnaires. Throw out all the questions about economics and foreign policy, and keep the ones about social issues. Administer the questionnaire to a representative sample of Americans and Western Europeans. Take the first principal component. That axis.
I wouldn’t put it that way because there’s a lot of ethics in economics and foreign policy, and because there are other areas of morality where the “social left” are the puritans (e.g., meat-eating and pollution).
Wow. I wonder what you mean by ethics, then. A change in economic or foreign policy may put many thousands of people out of or into work, it may result in lots of deaths if there’s a war—how can these not be ethical matters?
Is your axis one of Haidt’s five moral axes
No, I don’t think so.
I am still not quite sure how do you see it.
I’m sorry about that. I’ve tried giving handwavy qualitative descriptions. I’ve told you how to identify it statistically. I’m really not sure there’s much more I can reasonably be expected to do.
Wow. I wonder what you mean by ethics, then. A change in economic or foreign policy may put many thousands of people out of or into work, it may result in lots of deaths if there’s a war—how can these not be ethical matters?
Interesting. Our minds work sufficiently differently so that we hit minor misunderstandings on a very regular basis :-/
When I said “close to zero ethics in economics and foreign policy” I meant that decisions in this spheres are not driven by ethical considerations. Once you take out things like naked self-interest, desire for money and/or power, the necessity to keep up appearances, etc. the remaining influence of ethics, IMHO, is very small.
You, on the other hand, said “there’s a lot of ethics in economics and foreign policy” meaning that decisions in that sphere have meaningful consequences which we can evaluate ethically. That’s certainly true, but under this approach I can say that there is a lot of ethics in earthquakes. An earthquake “may put many thousands of people out of or into work, it may result in lots of deaths”, but is it an ethical matter?
No one (so far as we know) chooses whether there are to be earthquakes.
People do choose whether to start wars, increase or decrease minimum wages, levy new taxes, etc. (Governments choose directly; in democracies, their electorates choose indirectly.)
I don’t know to what extent people in government are thinking ethically when contemplating foreign and economic policy, though they frequently claim they are. I am fairly sure that when I vote, I am greatly influenced by my estimates of the candidates’ parties’ likely foreign and economic policy, and that I am thinking in ethical terms about what policies would be best.
Of course I may be fooling myself about that, and the politicians may certainly be lying about what drives their policies. But the same is true on “social” issues. I don’t know of any reason to be more confident that (say) abortion policy is really more driven by politicians’ or voters’ ethics than (say) taxation policy.
I don’t know to what extent people in government are thinking ethically when contemplating foreign and economic policy, though they frequently claim they are.
You can examine their decisions (“revealed preferences”) and check whether they require ethical imperatives as an explanation or they can perfectly well be explained without considering ethics.
I appreciate that this is not a trivial exercise (e.g. distinguishing between “we cannot ethically do that” and “we cannot do that for the sake of keeping up appearances” is going to be difficult), but so is much of real-life analysis.
Reason 1: Because I think that there’s some chance (maybe not very large) that if an LW denizen is wrong about something and gets snarked at, it may be what they need to improve; and that for any given quantity of snark this effect will be larger if the snark is aimed at a larger deserving subpopulation of LW; so that if there are more people wrong in way A and fewer wrong in way B, snarking about A is more likely to do good than snarking about B.
And, in the present instance, for reasons already discussed I think LW has more people in need of anti-far-right snark than people in need of anti-far-left snark.
(Of course—I repeat myself—if you’re snarking just for the fun of snarking then you needn’t care about that. And perhaps the chances of any good ever coming of snarking at anyone are negligible.)
Reason 2: Because if LW is welcoming to people in group A and hostile to people in group B, these groups playing roughly symmetrical roles on opposite ends of some spectrum, there is a risk of a positive-feedback loop that pushes LW further and further in the A direction and away from the B direction until it becomes severely and unfixably partisan, which (as you have already remarked) is not how LW is supposed to work and (as you haven’t remarked but I think is true) makes LW a less interesting and useful place by decreasing its intellectual diversity.
And, in the present instance, for reasons already discussed I think LW is welcoming to rightists and hostile to leftists. If so, then shifting that balance a bit would reduce the danger.
(How real is the danger? I don’t know. Maybe less real since the More Right folks left LW. Still there, though, I think.)
(An important note that perhaps I should have written some time ago: all this left/right stuff is of course a crude but useful one-dimensional simplification of reality and if taken too seriously raises the risk of the kind of us-versus-them thinking that we’re all too familiar with. And the axis we’re really looking at here doesn’t exactly correspond to the usual left/right political axis—it’s much more concerned with social, and less with economic, issues. Please be assured that I understand all this and am using terms like “left” and “right” only as a convenient shorthand.)
I am sorry, my life’s purpose is not to bring balance to the universe, one forum at a time. I am not in the re-education business.
Well, go for it :-) As I already noted, I don’t think so.
Given that NRx used to inhabit LW and then almost all of them went away while LW stayed as it is, I consider this risk negligible. Unless, of course, direction A is leftward :-D
Also, don’t forget that LW is populated mostly by Americans. From the European point of view, both US Democrats and US Republicans are right-of-centre.
I don’t know which axis are we looking at. Is there an axis at all or you just dont’ like a particular thought cluster?
Fair enough! As I said: you aren’t obliged to care about this stuff.
Take one of those political questionnaires. Throw out all the questions about economics and foreign policy, and keep the ones about social issues. Administer the questionnaire to a representative sample of Americans and Western Europeans. Take the first principal component. That axis.
So, basically morals, especially sexual morals? An axis with libertines at one extreme and puritans at the other?
I assume we’re throwing out “social” issues which are just economics in thin disguise, right?
I wouldn’t put it that way because there’s a lot of ethics in economics and foreign policy, and because there are other areas of morality where the “social left” are the puritans (e.g., meat-eating and pollution).
Funny :-/ I think there’s close to zero ethics in economics and foreign policy (there is some in handwringing and propaganda around them, though).
Is your axis one of Haidt’s five moral axes or it’s something different? I am still not quite sure how do you see it.
Wow. I wonder what you mean by ethics, then. A change in economic or foreign policy may put many thousands of people out of or into work, it may result in lots of deaths if there’s a war—how can these not be ethical matters?
No, I don’t think so.
I’m sorry about that. I’ve tried giving handwavy qualitative descriptions. I’ve told you how to identify it statistically. I’m really not sure there’s much more I can reasonably be expected to do.
Interesting. Our minds work sufficiently differently so that we hit minor misunderstandings on a very regular basis :-/
When I said “close to zero ethics in economics and foreign policy” I meant that decisions in this spheres are not driven by ethical considerations. Once you take out things like naked self-interest, desire for money and/or power, the necessity to keep up appearances, etc. the remaining influence of ethics, IMHO, is very small.
You, on the other hand, said “there’s a lot of ethics in economics and foreign policy” meaning that decisions in that sphere have meaningful consequences which we can evaluate ethically. That’s certainly true, but under this approach I can say that there is a lot of ethics in earthquakes. An earthquake “may put many thousands of people out of or into work, it may result in lots of deaths”, but is it an ethical matter?
No one (so far as we know) chooses whether there are to be earthquakes.
People do choose whether to start wars, increase or decrease minimum wages, levy new taxes, etc. (Governments choose directly; in democracies, their electorates choose indirectly.)
I don’t know to what extent people in government are thinking ethically when contemplating foreign and economic policy, though they frequently claim they are. I am fairly sure that when I vote, I am greatly influenced by my estimates of the candidates’ parties’ likely foreign and economic policy, and that I am thinking in ethical terms about what policies would be best.
Of course I may be fooling myself about that, and the politicians may certainly be lying about what drives their policies. But the same is true on “social” issues. I don’t know of any reason to be more confident that (say) abortion policy is really more driven by politicians’ or voters’ ethics than (say) taxation policy.
You can examine their decisions (“revealed preferences”) and check whether they require ethical imperatives as an explanation or they can perfectly well be explained without considering ethics.
I appreciate that this is not a trivial exercise (e.g. distinguishing between “we cannot ethically do that” and “we cannot do that for the sake of keeping up appearances” is going to be difficult), but so is much of real-life analysis.