What has to happen in your head for you to be willing to come to my house and eat food I cook and participate in charming conversation and then blithely slash our tires if we ask the wrong question because you think we’re going to become hysterical or behave immorally should we gain access to information or be told that we cannot have it? Why does that sound like a welcoming environment you’d like to visit, with us on such a supposed hair trigger about mere true facts?
There are some communities I consider incredibly welcoming where I don’t imagine by any means that anything I say will be received well just because it’s true. On the other hand, a subculture that not only has idiosyncratic social norms but aggressively shuns anyone who follows mainstream norms, likening violations of their idiosyncratic norms to slashing people’s tires… that sounds incredibly unwelcoming to me.
“Hair trigger about mere true facts” is hyperbole. But the truth is that the overwhelming majority of the human race consists of people who sometimes respond badly to being told “mere true facts.” Insisting you are an exception is quite a brag. It’s possible, but the prior is low. I’d give members of the LessWrong community better odds of being such an exception than I’d grant to most people, but I don’t think every member of the community, or even every prominent member of the community, qualifies. In some cases I think I’ve seen strong evidence to the contrary. (For reasons that should be obvious, please do not ask me to name names.) Because of this, I’m not going to default to treating most members of the LessWrong community radically differently than how I treat non-LessWrongers.
There are some communities I consider incredibly welcoming where I don’t imagine by any means that anything I say will be received well just because it’s true. On the other hand, a subculture that not only has idiosyncratic social norms but aggressively shuns anyone who follows mainstream norms, likening violations of their idiosyncratic norms to slashing people’s tires… that sounds incredibly unwelcoming to me.
“Hair trigger about mere true facts” is hyperbole. But the truth is that the overwhelming majority of the human race consists of people who sometimes respond badly to being told “mere true facts.” Insisting you are an exception is quite a brag. It’s possible, but the prior is low. I’d give members of the LessWrong community better odds of being such an exception than I’d grant to most people, but I don’t think every member of the community, or even every prominent member of the community, qualifies. In some cases I think I’ve seen strong evidence to the contrary. (For reasons that should be obvious, please do not ask me to name names.) Because of this, I’m not going to default to treating most members of the LessWrong community radically differently than how I treat non-LessWrongers.