I was using “dark arts” here in the more narrow sense of “techniques designed to subvert the rationality of others by exploiting cognitive biases.” I’m not speaking of being an effective flirt, or wearing flattering makeup and clothing. The sort of things I had in mind are, to take a mild example, bringing a slightly less attractive “wingman” to make oneself look more attractive than one would alone, or to take a serious example, whisking a woman from bar to bar to create the illusion of longer-term acquaintance. I see this as wrong for essentially the same reason that spiking someone’s drink is wrong if they wouldn’t sleep with you sober.
To oversimplify somewhat, I tend to see society as divided into three groups: those who don’t generally aspire to rationality (the majority of the population), those who want to share the bounty of rationality to help others overcome their biases (Lesswrong), and those who would instead use their knowledge of rationality to exploit people in the first group. I acknowledge that I am more confused by the current negative karma of my grandparent than the karma of any other comment I have ever made on this site.
I acknowledge that I am more confused by the current negative karma of my grandparent than the karma of any other comment I have ever made on this site.
My observation is that most of the posts I have made that criticised PUA or PUA-associated beliefs have been voted down very quickly, but then they have bounced back up over the next day or so such that the overall karma delta is highly positive. One hypothesis that explains it is that there are a certain number of people reviewing this thread at short intervals who are downvoting posts critical of PUA, but that they are not the plurality of posters reviewing this thread.
ETA: Update on this. Posts critical of PUA ideology that are concealed from the main thread either by being voted to −3 or below, or by being a descendant of such, get voted into the ground, and as far as I can see this effect is largely insensitive to the intellectual value or lack thereof of the post. I hypothesise that the general LW readership doesn’t bother drilling down to see what’s going on in those subthreads and hence their opinions are not reflected in the vote count, while PUA-enthusiasts who vote along ideological lines do bother to drill down.
Posts critical of PUA that are well-written, logical, pertinent and visible to the general readership are voted up, overall.
One explanation is that the first to read your messages are those you responded to, who are those most likely to note any poorness of fit between what they said and what they are alleged or implied to have said or believed.
I acknowledge that I am more confused by the current negative karma of my grandparent than the karma of any other comment I have ever made on this site.
I’m shocked that it didn’t stay below 0. Forget any point it was trying to make about dating—it sends totally the wrong message about ‘lesswrong’ attitudes towards ‘dark arts’!
I was using “dark arts” here in the more narrow sense of “techniques designed to subvert the rationality of others by exploiting cognitive biases.” I’m not speaking of being an effective flirt, or wearing flattering makeup and clothing. The sort of things I had in mind are, to take a mild example, bringing a slightly less attractive “wingman” to make oneself look more attractive than one would alone, or to take a serious example, whisking a woman from bar to bar to create the illusion of longer-term acquaintance. I see this as wrong for essentially the same reason that spiking someone’s drink is wrong if they wouldn’t sleep with you sober.
To oversimplify somewhat, I tend to see society as divided into three groups: those who don’t generally aspire to rationality (the majority of the population), those who want to share the bounty of rationality to help others overcome their biases (Lesswrong), and those who would instead use their knowledge of rationality to exploit people in the first group. I acknowledge that I am more confused by the current negative karma of my grandparent than the karma of any other comment I have ever made on this site.
My observation is that most of the posts I have made that criticised PUA or PUA-associated beliefs have been voted down very quickly, but then they have bounced back up over the next day or so such that the overall karma delta is highly positive. One hypothesis that explains it is that there are a certain number of people reviewing this thread at short intervals who are downvoting posts critical of PUA, but that they are not the plurality of posters reviewing this thread.
ETA: Update on this. Posts critical of PUA ideology that are concealed from the main thread either by being voted to −3 or below, or by being a descendant of such, get voted into the ground, and as far as I can see this effect is largely insensitive to the intellectual value or lack thereof of the post. I hypothesise that the general LW readership doesn’t bother drilling down to see what’s going on in those subthreads and hence their opinions are not reflected in the vote count, while PUA-enthusiasts who vote along ideological lines do bother to drill down.
Posts critical of PUA that are well-written, logical, pertinent and visible to the general readership are voted up, overall.
One explanation is that the first to read your messages are those you responded to, who are those most likely to note any poorness of fit between what they said and what they are alleged or implied to have said or believed.
I’m shocked that it didn’t stay below 0. Forget any point it was trying to make about dating—it sends totally the wrong message about ‘lesswrong’ attitudes towards ‘dark arts’!