The Onion wrote a brief recently, in defense of parody and satire. Are rationalists humorless, or unable to stomach critique when thousands of lives have been ruptured? I remember, when I was in Japan the first time, Kazue was explaining how she and her family hated Jon Stewart of the Daily Show… because “You’re not supposed to criticize leaders.” Are you of the same mindset?
No, I don’t want Less Wrong to turn into the Onion or the Daily Show. I enjoy reading the Onion sometimes, but it would be a waste to turn Less Wrong into that.
Criticizing leaders is fine though (although SBF isn’t one here, as far as I know).
Erm, I didn’t claim to want to ‘turn Lesswrong into the Onion and Daily Show’ - that is a mis-characterization of my argument. I referred to the arguments made by the Onion, in defense of satire, and I mentioned the criticism of the Daily Show only as a case of silencing critique. Neither implies what you claimed. I hope you can admit that; I am repeatedly strawmanned by supposed rationalists who claim ‘scouts mindset’, while output here is far below the standard of the philosophy message board I helped to moderate in the 90s; your mischaracterization does not help your argument.
Important to recognize here: your claim that ‘including Anthony’s poem’ slips and slides all the way, automatically, toward ‘Lesswrong is now the Onion’ --> that’s called a Slippery Slope Fallacy.
When someone uses a fallacy, that means one of two things:
Either you hoped to fool me, which is malicious
Or you were fooled yourself, which means you should probably work on thinking clearly.
Downvoting posts because you don’t want to see more posts like them is how vote-based moderation works. It’s not a fallacy to discourage behavior that you want to see less of.
Yes, that is correct—downvoting is to discourage unwanted behavior, and downvoting is not a fallacy.
What IS a fallacy: ‘including Anthony’s poem will turn Lesswrong into the Onion’. That is called the Slippery Slope fallacy. It can just as easily be the case that Lesswrong downvotes me so thoroughly, no future aberration would dare raise their heads, and Lesswrong becomes even more what differentiates it from the Onion. You used a slippery slope fallacy, and you also mischaracterized my statement, when you said: “I don’t want Less Wrong to turn into the Onion or the Daily Show.” I specifically was not advocating to turn Lesswrong into the Onion; I mentioned the brief the Onion wrote in defense of parody and satire. That is not the same as advocating that Lesswrong be Onion.
So, you are still unwilling to admit that you mischaracterized me, and that you used a slippery slope fallacy. Instead, you deflected to a true-but-irrelevant point, and you try to imply that I argued “downvoting is a fallacy” when I did not. Your behavior does not bode well for your community—none of them notice or speak up.
nah, they just prefer the attack be very precise here—it’s generally considered kinder here to do what elsewhere would be considered ruthless precise deconstruction. you can see in my comments on the main “we should clarify, fraud bad, actually” post that I’ve been similarly critical of the immune response against criticism of him. in my view, it is generally a good idea to focus on policies, not people, even when describing the problems with a single person’s behavior.
I strong upvoted you back to zero on this comment, though I strong downvoted the main post.
[[As per your request for broader focus, I’ll summarize the arguments presented in the poem, as prose:
Sam’s name should be a helpful reminder that we keep, like Santa Claus, to sustain intellectual humility and due diligence, instead of falling in line behind visionary billionaires and get-rich-quick influencers.
The strategy admitted in an earlier interview was in fact a Ponzi scheme, and that has cost a lot of people money that they planned to have, which is an even bigger upset than just never having gotten it in the first place, because they spend other cash with the expectation of having this in reserve. So, Sam’s money was definitely not coming from a real source of value—it was belated theft. And, even if the siphoning of >$600M from FTX by a ‘hacker’ (known now to Kraken...) was NOT SBF himself, he was the one who installed the backdoor which allowed the siphon to happen, thus he is the cause.
The billionaire/valley mantra of failure, leaving catastrophe in its wake for the little guys, is replayed in WeWork and Nikola and all these others. Elon is currently destroying Twitter, and Zuck spewed cash and crew for the Metablurp. Oh, crap, I was humorous again! I’ll stop there...]]
Hehehe—I am repeatedly amazed by the degree to which your community justifies enforcing odd norms of communication, without addressing the substance of the argument. Consider if, in the extreme, I was downvoted or dismissed for not following MLA formatting, without mention of the content? I see “satire is not the kind of impersonal, vague dialogue we permit” as of a feather; what compassion is there for the betrayal and ruin of so many, and the grim humor we make, to claw our spirit back?
The validity of satire and gallows-humor is secure, tested in dictatorships and academic halls; I do not pretend that your community’s assessment of appropriateness changes it. If I am removed for this, you are well within your rights—and, you brand yourself for excluding what is clearly meant to vent feelings and give release to tension, to reverberate with those in similar moods. There is good reason beneath, too! Reasons presence is not emotion’s absence. Look carefully how well you appeal to the world, when they are only allowed to express themselves to you in the format suiting your approval.
I really don’t think LessWrong is the place for personal attacks, whether or not the target has done something bad.
The Onion wrote a brief recently, in defense of parody and satire. Are rationalists humorless, or unable to stomach critique when thousands of lives have been ruptured? I remember, when I was in Japan the first time, Kazue was explaining how she and her family hated Jon Stewart of the Daily Show… because “You’re not supposed to criticize leaders.” Are you of the same mindset?
No, I don’t want Less Wrong to turn into the Onion or the Daily Show. I enjoy reading the Onion sometimes, but it would be a waste to turn Less Wrong into that.
Criticizing leaders is fine though (although SBF isn’t one here, as far as I know).
Erm, I didn’t claim to want to ‘turn Lesswrong into the Onion and Daily Show’ - that is a mis-characterization of my argument. I referred to the arguments made by the Onion, in defense of satire, and I mentioned the criticism of the Daily Show only as a case of silencing critique. Neither implies what you claimed. I hope you can admit that; I am repeatedly strawmanned by supposed rationalists who claim ‘scouts mindset’, while output here is far below the standard of the philosophy message board I helped to moderate in the 90s; your mischaracterization does not help your argument.
Important to recognize here: your claim that ‘including Anthony’s poem’ slips and slides all the way, automatically, toward ‘Lesswrong is now the Onion’ --> that’s called a Slippery Slope Fallacy.
When someone uses a fallacy, that means one of two things:
Either you hoped to fool me, which is malicious
Or you were fooled yourself, which means you should probably work on thinking clearly.
Downvoting posts because you don’t want to see more posts like them is how vote-based moderation works. It’s not a fallacy to discourage behavior that you want to see less of.
Yes, that is correct—downvoting is to discourage unwanted behavior, and downvoting is not a fallacy.
What IS a fallacy: ‘including Anthony’s poem will turn Lesswrong into the Onion’. That is called the Slippery Slope fallacy. It can just as easily be the case that Lesswrong downvotes me so thoroughly, no future aberration would dare raise their heads, and Lesswrong becomes even more what differentiates it from the Onion. You used a slippery slope fallacy, and you also mischaracterized my statement, when you said: “I don’t want Less Wrong to turn into the Onion or the Daily Show.” I specifically was not advocating to turn Lesswrong into the Onion; I mentioned the brief the Onion wrote in defense of parody and satire. That is not the same as advocating that Lesswrong be Onion.
So, you are still unwilling to admit that you mischaracterized me, and that you used a slippery slope fallacy. Instead, you deflected to a true-but-irrelevant point, and you try to imply that I argued “downvoting is a fallacy” when I did not. Your behavior does not bode well for your community—none of them notice or speak up.
nah, they just prefer the attack be very precise here—it’s generally considered kinder here to do what elsewhere would be considered ruthless precise deconstruction. you can see in my comments on the main “we should clarify, fraud bad, actually” post that I’ve been similarly critical of the immune response against criticism of him. in my view, it is generally a good idea to focus on policies, not people, even when describing the problems with a single person’s behavior.
I strong upvoted you back to zero on this comment, though I strong downvoted the main post.
[[As per your request for broader focus, I’ll summarize the arguments presented in the poem, as prose:
Sam’s name should be a helpful reminder that we keep, like Santa Claus, to sustain intellectual humility and due diligence, instead of falling in line behind visionary billionaires and get-rich-quick influencers.
The strategy admitted in an earlier interview was in fact a Ponzi scheme, and that has cost a lot of people money that they planned to have, which is an even bigger upset than just never having gotten it in the first place, because they spend other cash with the expectation of having this in reserve. So, Sam’s money was definitely not coming from a real source of value—it was belated theft. And, even if the siphoning of >$600M from FTX by a ‘hacker’ (known now to Kraken...) was NOT SBF himself, he was the one who installed the backdoor which allowed the siphon to happen, thus he is the cause.
The billionaire/valley mantra of failure, leaving catastrophe in its wake for the little guys, is replayed in WeWork and Nikola and all these others. Elon is currently destroying Twitter, and Zuck spewed cash and crew for the Metablurp. Oh, crap, I was humorous again! I’ll stop there...]]
And I upvote you, for engaging more thoughtfully than many I’ve encountered here!
Hehehe—I am repeatedly amazed by the degree to which your community justifies enforcing odd norms of communication, without addressing the substance of the argument. Consider if, in the extreme, I was downvoted or dismissed for not following MLA formatting, without mention of the content? I see “satire is not the kind of impersonal, vague dialogue we permit” as of a feather; what compassion is there for the betrayal and ruin of so many, and the grim humor we make, to claw our spirit back?
The validity of satire and gallows-humor is secure, tested in dictatorships and academic halls; I do not pretend that your community’s assessment of appropriateness changes it. If I am removed for this, you are well within your rights—and, you brand yourself for excluding what is clearly meant to vent feelings and give release to tension, to reverberate with those in similar moods. There is good reason beneath, too! Reasons presence is not emotion’s absence. Look carefully how well you appeal to the world, when they are only allowed to express themselves to you in the format suiting your approval.