As someone who didn’t receive the codes, but read the email on Honoring Petrov Day, I also got the sense it wasn’t too serious. The thing that would most give me pause is “a resource thousands of people view every day”.
I’m not sure I can say exactly what seems lighthearted about the email to me. Perhaps I just assumed it would be, and so read it that way. If I were to pick a few concrete things, I would say the phrase “with our honor intact” seems like a joke, and also “the opportunity to not destroy LessWrong” seems like a silly phrase (kind of similar to “a little bit the worst thing ever”). On reflection, yep, you are getting an opportunity you don’t normally get. But it’s also weird to have an opportunity to perform a negative action.
Also, it still seems to me that there’s no reason anyone who was taking it seriously would blow up LW (apart from maybe Jeff Kauffman). So if there’s a real risk of someone blowing it up, it must not be that serious.
As someone who didn’t receive the codes, but read the email on Honoring Petrov Day, I also got the sense it wasn’t too serious. The thing that would most give me pause is “a resource thousands of people view every day”.
I’m not sure I can say exactly what seems lighthearted about the email to me. Perhaps I just assumed it would be, and so read it that way. If I were to pick a few concrete things, I would say the phrase “with our honor intact” seems like a joke, and also “the opportunity to not destroy LessWrong” seems like a silly phrase (kind of similar to “a little bit the worst thing ever”). On reflection, yep, you are getting an opportunity you don’t normally get. But it’s also weird to have an opportunity to perform a negative action.
Also, it still seems to me that there’s no reason anyone who was taking it seriously would blow up LW (apart from maybe Jeff Kauffman). So if there’s a real risk of someone blowing it up, it must not be that serious.