Having a community norm that assumes that if someone provides evidence against a claim you are making that obligates you to spend more time to make the claim in more depth is bad. It’s generally better if people spent their time to argue in a way they believe to be productive and good for LessWrong.
You find plenty of times that people don’t spent more time and effort when challenged by other people. The difference in this case is that I explained why I made that decision explicitely.
A position that it’s bad to do that explicitely instead of just not replying is one for censorship.
That’s interesting. Do you have specific examples? I’d be interested the context where he said that. I do agree if that reduced Eliezer’s contribution that was a significant negative impact.
My concern is more rooted in status. LW is already associated enough with fringe ideas, I don’t think it does us well to be seen endorsing low-status things without evidence. Imagine (as an extreme example, I’m not trying to equate the two) if I said something about Flat Earth Theory and then if I was challenged on it said that I didn’t think it was an appropriate place to discuss it. That’s… not a good look.
There are two issues here. First, being too much concerned with signaling status is exactly what this sequence challenges.
Second, even if status is your core concern moving a discussion that’s about an abstract principle to one that’s about personal romantic experience is a low status move.
The key question of Zvi’s post is “The world would be better if people treated more situations like the first set of problems, and less situations like the second set of problems. How to do that?”.
I gave an example of how to think about one of this example in the second set to move it towards the first. I pointed to the way out of the maze. Yes, going out of the maze is low status but that’s the point. Thinking well through the example takes a bit of a Straussian perspective.
Having a community norm that assumes that if someone provides evidence against a claim you are making that obligates you to spend more time to make the claim in more depth is bad. It’s generally better if people spent their time to argue in a way they believe to be productive and good for LessWrong.
You find plenty of times that people don’t spent more time and effort when challenged by other people. The difference in this case is that I explained why I made that decision explicitely.
A position that it’s bad to do that explicitely instead of just not replying is one for censorship.
I think if you don’t want to debate or defend controversial statements it’s probably best to just not make them in the first place.
That’s the kind of thinking that drove Eliezer from posting on LessWrong. I think it’s pretty harmful for our community.
That’s interesting. Do you have specific examples? I’d be interested the context where he said that. I do agree if that reduced Eliezer’s contribution that was a significant negative impact.
My concern is more rooted in status. LW is already associated enough with fringe ideas, I don’t think it does us well to be seen endorsing low-status things without evidence. Imagine (as an extreme example, I’m not trying to equate the two) if I said something about Flat Earth Theory and then if I was challenged on it said that I didn’t think it was an appropriate place to discuss it. That’s… not a good look.
There are two issues here. First, being too much concerned with signaling status is exactly what this sequence challenges.
Second, even if status is your core concern moving a discussion that’s about an abstract principle to one that’s about personal romantic experience is a low status move.
The key question of Zvi’s post is “The world would be better if people treated more situations like the first set of problems, and less situations like the second set of problems. How to do that?”.
I gave an example of how to think about one of this example in the second set to move it towards the first. I pointed to the way out of the maze. Yes, going out of the maze is low status but that’s the point. Thinking well through the example takes a bit of a Straussian perspective.