Are you trying to trick me? Karmassassinating prominent LW users would have absolutely no effect. Karma’s not a scarce resource. I’m not dumb.
My demand’s simple, and I’ve claimed that I’m unlikely to make any similar demand in the future, given that I’m unlikely to make any similarly extreme post in the future. I’m a contributor to this community with over 6,000 karma. It’s not a “don’t negotiate with terrorists” situation here.
Are you trying to trick me? Karmassassinating prominent LW users would have absolutely no effect. Karma’s not a scarce resource.
Assassinations. Nothing to do with karma. The context was you threatening vandalism. You are capable of that. You are capable of an entire spectrum of applications of force against lesswrong and those associated. You don’t need to persuade me (or anyone with half a clue) that you are capable of doing harm—it is taken for granted.
It is also unremarkable. I could use force against most people I meet, at great expense to myself. Many of them could do the same against me. A strategy of just doing what people say because they threaten to use costly force is a bad strategy in such circumstances.
My demand’s simple, and I’ve claimed that I’m unlikely to make any similar demand in the future, given that I’m unlikely to make any similarly extreme post in the future.
That makes a big difference. As does the fact that your “threat” is somewhat similar behavior to what can usually be expected of folks in those circumstances regardless of any precommitment to use force.
I’m a contributor to this community with over 6,000 karma.
This kind of thing matters more prior to declaring your intent to get what you want through power and the threat of punishment.
It’s not a “don’t negotiate with terrorists” situation here.
No, the payoff matrix in that scenario is typically a bit different (incentive to take hostages, etc.)
What the fuck are you both talking about? You need to lay off Will, and Will (apparently) needs regular psychological relief, or something. I’m not the most stable individual myself, so I understand how it feels when going for “as crazy as possible” seems like a path to enlightenment at the moment, or a way to make others understand you, or something else that’s desirable.
Nevertheless, he’s a valuable contributor with many fascinating comments, and even talking about banning him is utter nonsense. No goddamn way.
“What the fuck?” indeed! It isn’t especially complicated. Read the context and if you still can’t understand say nothing or ask nicely.
You need to lay off Will
What? I’m not attacking Will. Will was talking to Alicorn about banning and I was making gratuitous analysis of the practical implications of that sort of threat after already having declared a “No” to any moderator influence. Elsewhere in the thread I have been directly answering the questions Will asked, candidly, to the best of my ability . Will was pushing for more answering and speculation about his reasoning, not less.
I’m not the most stable individual myself, so I understand how it feels when going for “as crazy as possible” seems like a path to enlightenment at the moment, or a way to make others understand you, or something else that’s desirable.
I’m sorry to hear that. For what it is worth I’m not either. But in this case your “understand how it feels” amounts to either confused mind projection or intrusive, patronizing other optimization.
No, the answer Will is trying to make us speculate about regarding “Why am I trying to appear as non-credible as possible?” is not “because I want to make others understand me” (p > 0.9). At times Will has even speculated that not being easy to understand is actually something he may be morally obliged to do (assuming I recall correctly).
Nevertheless, he’s a valuable contributor with many fascinating comments, and even talking about banning him is utter nonsense. No goddamn way.
That’s fine—assuming you are directing your comment to Alicorn and not myself (which doesn’t seem likely).
No, the answer Will is trying to make us speculate about regarding “Why am I trying to appear as non-credible as possible?” is not “because I want to make others understand me” (p > 0.9). At times Will has even speculated that not being easy to understand is actually something he may be morally obliged to do (assuming I recall correctly).
Yeah, yeah, I understand that, I just didn’t name it. (Is there even a term for something like that? Self-abasement intended to channel a certain role, all for truth’s sake?) And I only skimmed through your comments, sorry; I feel awfully embarrassed to look at people being chided, and I assumed you were doing just that to Will, although I saw that you weren’t talking about a ban.
That’s fine—assuming you are directing your comment to Alicorn and not myself (which doesn’t seem likely).
I was directing that part to her, since she’s the one who can decide whether to ban a user, not you :)
And I only skimmed through your comments, sorry; I feel awfully embarrassed to look at people being chided, and I assumed you were doing just that to Will, although I saw that you weren’t talking about a ban.
Thank you for your level headed reply! I understand the aversion to reading embarrassing interactions—I even struggle not to look away or cringe when I encounter such stimulus on TV.
For some reason chiding Will is something that almost seems like a category error, just not making sense as something to do, given the way he orients himself and responds to that kind of stimulus. It does make sense to analyze his actions or to, say, declare an intent to combat actions through trivial applications of power but not chiding per se.
I think it is the fact that Will actively positions himself as someone who doesn’t operate by community standards and actively defies public will and so chiding him according to those standards he already knows he doesn’t operate by makes no sense. On the other hand it feels natural for my remnant former-Christian self to chide Will according to Christian standards and doctrine, which are approximately shared between myself up through to my early twenties and Will as he professes now.
On the other hand it feels natural for my remnant former-Christian self to chide Will according to Christian standards and doctrine, which are approximately shared between myself up through to my early twenties and Will as he professes now
Though I don’t think you really have a lot of information there—I haven’t talked much about any religious beliefs I may or may not have. For what it’s worth I’ve shifted towards thinking the Catholics are pretty evil, just not for the reasons people always complain about, which are mostly reasons fabricated by Protestants and Enlightenment propagandists.
Also I was never Christian, so though I’ve read much of my Bible and a lot of theology, I have very little understanding of the religion as it is practiced.
Well, priors of course always suggest against organizational goodness. And the Catholics have historically done much good. But their conception of God can be frightening, and many people learn to worship their God. They also don’t have any mechanism by which they could update—their entire belief system is structured around the idea that God wouldn’t let them go astray. If God is as important as they claim, then it’s easy for them to be evil by their own lights. “Discernment isn’t about telling right from wrong, it’s chiefly about telling right from almost right.”
There are other reasons more speculative, they’re in my comments from the last few months, use Wei Dai’s tool, search for Catholic. If you want.
Thank you for the response. Though checking your comment history you still preferred Catholics as recently as mid April (citing them as a new possible group to join).
If I were to join any phyg, it’d be the Dominicans. SingInst might be my second choice, but you can’t join them, you can only join the Rationalist Conspiracy these days. And I’ve already left SingInst’s Journeyman circle or whatever, there’s no going back after that. But I’m damn glad I was a Visiting Fellow for two years.
What do you think of the Greek Othordox? Nassim Taleb endorses them for aesthetic reasons and for the fact that their understanding of God is Apophatic primarily and thus doesn’t intrude on real world near beliefs.
I have no opinion. If they’re at all like Russian Orthodox folk then I probably like them somewhat. But I’m only really into the Catholics, and that’s mostly because they seem massively undervalued, not because I think they should be the arbiters of truth and justice. But they think God should be the arbiter of truth and justice, and I agree with them about that, and agree with them that that’s an extremely important fact about the world that should shape how we live our lives.
Will (apparently) needs regular psychological relief, or something.
Why do you say that? Clearly all of this drama and so on was explicitly intended. And I’ve remained calm the whole time. People close to me can attest that I’ve been psychologically healthy for the past many months. Do you think there are any clear indicators that I need psychological relief, other than that I’m explicitly trying to lose credibility? Do you think trying to lose credibility is always a strong sign of incorrect beliefs or psychological problems? If so, to what extent is that because it’s merely correlated with other, generally undesirable traits?
I was going to say about how I’m sorry, didn’t mean any insult, how I saw and heard some evidence for that judgment around here before… but ah, screw it, everyone can plainly see that I’m trying to act like an RPG hero, negotiating conflicts with the most authority and Deep Wisdom that his (my) dialogue options allow. ;)
I fully admit to being schizotypal by nature, leaning towards schizoaffective. So do take that into account. But I too have taken into account.
Interestingly, part of the definition of schizophrenia has been manipulated by intelligence agencies. Don’t take my word of course, look it up. If I recall specifically the parts about conspiracies at least. But I didn’t look closely into the issue. It’s not incredibly relevant.
You are being oppositional. Whether it is for reasons recreational, delusional, psychological, educational, or other is something I wonder about but do not know.
I have a friend who is bipolar (manic depressive.) I was around when he had a break that put him (voluntarily) in the psych ward taking drugs that risked doing permanent nerve damage and made his mind, he said, feel like scrambled eggs, just because he thought this gave him a better chance of ever ’coming back.”
I didn’t know where he was headed in the weeks before, even though his wife did. I thought SHE was crazy, until he went over the wall.
I doubt that is what is going on with you, but how would I know?
Whether it is or not, talk of banning you seems ludicrous to me.
Whether it is or not, your deliberately provoking the more fascist among us to talk of banning you seems ludicrous as well. Presumably you think you have a good reason to do this. I don’t know what your reason is, and it doesn’t matter whether I would agree that it is a good reason or not, I don’t consider blowing raspberry’s at people with fascist instincts should be a bannable “offense,” it should rather be well within the bounds of conversation. IMHO.
Mwengler, please stop throwing the word “fascist” around. Will_Newsome is a contributor to a website who has recently started to annoy the other contributors and arguably to lower the quality of the community. Open discussions are being had as to whether it would be best for the community to prevent him from causing further disturbance by means of a temporary or permanent ban. This is no more repressive than what any other website does. We’re not talking about banning “dissent” or “independence”, we’re talking about banning annoying comments with a high noise level. If you don’t support a ban, that’s fine, but please don’t make unwarranted comparisons to oppressive governments. They distort the facts and lower the tone of the conversation.
A strategy of just doing what people say because they threaten to use costly force is a bad strategy in such circumstances.
What do you think of a strategy of just NOT doing what people say because they threaten to use costly force in such circumstances? By my reading you seem to favor it.
For me, making the implicit explicit should NEVER be punished, and should often be rewarded. Will’s crime here from my point of view is “not playing nice.”
wdrifid’s reaction is that of a police state, it seems to me. Even the APPEARANCE of independence must be suppressed. No challenge to power is trivial enough to be ignored and allowed.
Are you trying to trick me? Karmassassinating prominent LW users would have absolutely no effect. Karma’s not a scarce resource. I’m not dumb.
My demand’s simple, and I’ve claimed that I’m unlikely to make any similar demand in the future, given that I’m unlikely to make any similarly extreme post in the future. I’m a contributor to this community with over 6,000 karma. It’s not a “don’t negotiate with terrorists” situation here.
Assassinations. Nothing to do with karma. The context was you threatening vandalism. You are capable of that. You are capable of an entire spectrum of applications of force against lesswrong and those associated. You don’t need to persuade me (or anyone with half a clue) that you are capable of doing harm—it is taken for granted.
It is also unremarkable. I could use force against most people I meet, at great expense to myself. Many of them could do the same against me. A strategy of just doing what people say because they threaten to use costly force is a bad strategy in such circumstances.
That makes a big difference. As does the fact that your “threat” is somewhat similar behavior to what can usually be expected of folks in those circumstances regardless of any precommitment to use force.
This kind of thing matters more prior to declaring your intent to get what you want through power and the threat of punishment.
No, the payoff matrix in that scenario is typically a bit different (incentive to take hostages, etc.)
What the fuck are you both talking about? You need to lay off Will, and Will (apparently) needs regular psychological relief, or something. I’m not the most stable individual myself, so I understand how it feels when going for “as crazy as possible” seems like a path to enlightenment at the moment, or a way to make others understand you, or something else that’s desirable.
Nevertheless, he’s a valuable contributor with many fascinating comments, and even talking about banning him is utter nonsense. No goddamn way.
Up voted for best thread summary.
“What the fuck?” indeed! It isn’t especially complicated. Read the context and if you still can’t understand say nothing or ask nicely.
What? I’m not attacking Will. Will was talking to Alicorn about banning and I was making gratuitous analysis of the practical implications of that sort of threat after already having declared a “No” to any moderator influence. Elsewhere in the thread I have been directly answering the questions Will asked, candidly, to the best of my ability . Will was pushing for more answering and speculation about his reasoning, not less.
I’m sorry to hear that. For what it is worth I’m not either. But in this case your “understand how it feels” amounts to either confused mind projection or intrusive, patronizing other optimization.
No, the answer Will is trying to make us speculate about regarding “Why am I trying to appear as non-credible as possible?” is not “because I want to make others understand me” (p > 0.9). At times Will has even speculated that not being easy to understand is actually something he may be morally obliged to do (assuming I recall correctly).
That’s fine—assuming you are directing your comment to Alicorn and not myself (which doesn’t seem likely).
Yeah, yeah, I understand that, I just didn’t name it. (Is there even a term for something like that? Self-abasement intended to channel a certain role, all for truth’s sake?)
And I only skimmed through your comments, sorry; I feel awfully embarrassed to look at people being chided, and I assumed you were doing just that to Will, although I saw that you weren’t talking about a ban.
I was directing that part to her, since she’s the one who can decide whether to ban a user, not you :)
Thank you for your level headed reply! I understand the aversion to reading embarrassing interactions—I even struggle not to look away or cringe when I encounter such stimulus on TV.
For some reason chiding Will is something that almost seems like a category error, just not making sense as something to do, given the way he orients himself and responds to that kind of stimulus. It does make sense to analyze his actions or to, say, declare an intent to combat actions through trivial applications of power but not chiding per se.
I think it is the fact that Will actively positions himself as someone who doesn’t operate by community standards and actively defies public will and so chiding him according to those standards he already knows he doesn’t operate by makes no sense. On the other hand it feels natural for my remnant former-Christian self to chide Will according to Christian standards and doctrine, which are approximately shared between myself up through to my early twenties and Will as he professes now.
Though I don’t think you really have a lot of information there—I haven’t talked much about any religious beliefs I may or may not have. For what it’s worth I’ve shifted towards thinking the Catholics are pretty evil, just not for the reasons people always complain about, which are mostly reasons fabricated by Protestants and Enlightenment propagandists.
Also I was never Christian, so though I’ve read much of my Bible and a lot of theology, I have very little understanding of the religion as it is practiced.
Explain.
Can you share why you think the Catholic Church is evil?
Well, priors of course always suggest against organizational goodness. And the Catholics have historically done much good. But their conception of God can be frightening, and many people learn to worship their God. They also don’t have any mechanism by which they could update—their entire belief system is structured around the idea that God wouldn’t let them go astray. If God is as important as they claim, then it’s easy for them to be evil by their own lights. “Discernment isn’t about telling right from wrong, it’s chiefly about telling right from almost right.”
There are other reasons more speculative, they’re in my comments from the last few months, use Wei Dai’s tool, search for Catholic. If you want.
Thank you for the response. Though checking your comment history you still preferred Catholics as recently as mid April (citing them as a new possible group to join).
If I were to join any phyg, it’d be the Dominicans. SingInst might be my second choice, but you can’t join them, you can only join the Rationalist Conspiracy these days. And I’ve already left SingInst’s Journeyman circle or whatever, there’s no going back after that. But I’m damn glad I was a Visiting Fellow for two years.
What do you think of the Greek Othordox? Nassim Taleb endorses them for aesthetic reasons and for the fact that their understanding of God is Apophatic primarily and thus doesn’t intrude on real world near beliefs.
I have no opinion. If they’re at all like Russian Orthodox folk then I probably like them somewhat. But I’m only really into the Catholics, and that’s mostly because they seem massively undervalued, not because I think they should be the arbiters of truth and justice. But they think God should be the arbiter of truth and justice, and I agree with them about that, and agree with them that that’s an extremely important fact about the world that should shape how we live our lives.
Dang! Not Alfred E Newman, but rather John Henry Newman. Obviously. Duh.
Thank you for clarifying your position against banning Will.
It sure isn’t how most of your comments read.
This might be informative:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/a61/not_insane_unsane/5wjy
Why do you say that? Clearly all of this drama and so on was explicitly intended. And I’ve remained calm the whole time. People close to me can attest that I’ve been psychologically healthy for the past many months. Do you think there are any clear indicators that I need psychological relief, other than that I’m explicitly trying to lose credibility? Do you think trying to lose credibility is always a strong sign of incorrect beliefs or psychological problems? If so, to what extent is that because it’s merely correlated with other, generally undesirable traits?
I was going to say about how I’m sorry, didn’t mean any insult, how I saw and heard some evidence for that judgment around here before… but ah, screw it, everyone can plainly see that I’m trying to act like an RPG hero, negotiating conflicts with the most authority and Deep Wisdom that his (my) dialogue options allow. ;)
You need more paragon points before that will work.
Can it wait a little bit? I’m in the middle of some calibrations...
ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL OF THREAD. CHAOTIC ORGANIC ROLE PLAY WAS DEGRADING THE SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO.
I fully admit to being schizotypal by nature, leaning towards schizoaffective. So do take that into account. But I too have taken into account.
Interestingly, part of the definition of schizophrenia has been manipulated by intelligence agencies. Don’t take my word of course, look it up. If I recall specifically the parts about conspiracies at least. But I didn’t look closely into the issue. It’s not incredibly relevant.
You are being oppositional. Whether it is for reasons recreational, delusional, psychological, educational, or other is something I wonder about but do not know.
I have a friend who is bipolar (manic depressive.) I was around when he had a break that put him (voluntarily) in the psych ward taking drugs that risked doing permanent nerve damage and made his mind, he said, feel like scrambled eggs, just because he thought this gave him a better chance of ever ’coming back.”
I didn’t know where he was headed in the weeks before, even though his wife did. I thought SHE was crazy, until he went over the wall.
I doubt that is what is going on with you, but how would I know?
Whether it is or not, talk of banning you seems ludicrous to me.
Whether it is or not, your deliberately provoking the more fascist among us to talk of banning you seems ludicrous as well. Presumably you think you have a good reason to do this. I don’t know what your reason is, and it doesn’t matter whether I would agree that it is a good reason or not, I don’t consider blowing raspberry’s at people with fascist instincts should be a bannable “offense,” it should rather be well within the bounds of conversation. IMHO.
Mwengler, please stop throwing the word “fascist” around. Will_Newsome is a contributor to a website who has recently started to annoy the other contributors and arguably to lower the quality of the community. Open discussions are being had as to whether it would be best for the community to prevent him from causing further disturbance by means of a temporary or permanent ban. This is no more repressive than what any other website does. We’re not talking about banning “dissent” or “independence”, we’re talking about banning annoying comments with a high noise level. If you don’t support a ban, that’s fine, but please don’t make unwarranted comparisons to oppressive governments. They distort the facts and lower the tone of the conversation.
What do you think of a strategy of just NOT doing what people say because they threaten to use costly force in such circumstances? By my reading you seem to favor it.
For me, making the implicit explicit should NEVER be punished, and should often be rewarded. Will’s crime here from my point of view is “not playing nice.”
wdrifid’s reaction is that of a police state, it seems to me. Even the APPEARANCE of independence must be suppressed. No challenge to power is trivial enough to be ignored and allowed.