I agree that it would have been better had Eugine defended himself, because he was obviously aware that he was making people unhappy. But from the sounds of it, he did try to justify/defend his position when contacted by the moderators. Therefore we shouldn’t assume he was acting in bad faith; it is just as likely that, in the context that the downvote threads existed in, he didn’t think he’d get a fair hearing or that discussion would be helpful. To be clear, I don’t agree with his actions, but I don’t see them as evincing a “pathological disregard” (your words) or anything like it.
To give an example: gwern has repeatedly insulted me, and recently made a subtle, but personal, jab at me in an Open thread comment. What should my response be? I don’t see myself as morally obliged to respond in kind and get into an argument in hostile circumstances. I think the correct behaviour is to rise above it and ignore him . Yet that will also have the effect of confirming, in the mind of gwern and his sympathisers,that I am indeed a troll as he says. I would not like my silence (out of genuine concern for community harmony) to be used against me, particularly by a poster as(IMHO) intellectually bankrupt as gwern. But by the same token I think we shouldn’t hold Eugine’s public silence against him.
There is a pretty big difference between ignoring one commenter who doesn’t like you and ignoring the complaints of a large proportion of the community. This wasn’t just one or two people kvetching. It was a large number of people, including many (like me) not directly targeted by the behavior. I don’t think you have any obligation to respond to gwern, but if a significant segment of the community objected strongly to your allegedly trollish behavior, and some valuable contributors said they no longer felt comfortable participating on LW because of that behavior, I would consider it “pathological disregard” for you to continue what you were doing as if none of this was happening, without addressing it in any way.
Keep in mind that Eugine continued (surreptitiously) with his block-downvoting not just after a number of users expressed their dissatisfaction, but also after the administration of this site made it clear they disapproved of the behavior. First Eliezer said that he was trying to track down the block downvoter (he failed for some reason), then Kaj put up this post. And Eugine kept down-voting. I don’t see how this doesn’t read as disregard for the community.
Perhaps he thought he was somehow making the community better by his actions (although it’s much more plausible to me that he was just ridiculously mind-killed, since virtually all of the block-downvoting appears to be motivated by political disagreement), but he was still doing it in the face of the community’s express wishes, and to the evident detriment of community relations. Thinking that his behavior would make the community better/more successful is so disconnected from the reality of what was actually happening that it qualifies as pathological disregard for the community, I think. Disregard for what people think and how they feel, and disregard for the observable consequences of his behavior.
Perhaps he thought he was somehow making the community better by his actions (although it’s much more plausible to me that he was just ridiculously mind-killed
I don’t see a contradiction here. If someone is mind-killed, then from inside it seems like all people with different political opinions are idiots, and the debate would be more rational without them.
Thus in my opinion Eugine completely failed in the lessons about mindkilling and ethical injunctions, and was incompatible with the spirit of Less Wrong.
I agree that it would have been better had Eugine defended himself, because he was obviously aware that he was making people unhappy. But from the sounds of it, he did try to justify/defend his position when contacted by the moderators. Therefore we shouldn’t assume he was acting in bad faith; it is just as likely that, in the context that the downvote threads existed in, he didn’t think he’d get a fair hearing or that discussion would be helpful. To be clear, I don’t agree with his actions, but I don’t see them as evincing a “pathological disregard” (your words) or anything like it.
To give an example: gwern has repeatedly insulted me, and recently made a subtle, but personal, jab at me in an Open thread comment. What should my response be? I don’t see myself as morally obliged to respond in kind and get into an argument in hostile circumstances. I think the correct behaviour is to rise above it and ignore him . Yet that will also have the effect of confirming, in the mind of gwern and his sympathisers,that I am indeed a troll as he says. I would not like my silence (out of genuine concern for community harmony) to be used against me, particularly by a poster as(IMHO) intellectually bankrupt as gwern. But by the same token I think we shouldn’t hold Eugine’s public silence against him.
There is a pretty big difference between ignoring one commenter who doesn’t like you and ignoring the complaints of a large proportion of the community. This wasn’t just one or two people kvetching. It was a large number of people, including many (like me) not directly targeted by the behavior. I don’t think you have any obligation to respond to gwern, but if a significant segment of the community objected strongly to your allegedly trollish behavior, and some valuable contributors said they no longer felt comfortable participating on LW because of that behavior, I would consider it “pathological disregard” for you to continue what you were doing as if none of this was happening, without addressing it in any way.
Keep in mind that Eugine continued (surreptitiously) with his block-downvoting not just after a number of users expressed their dissatisfaction, but also after the administration of this site made it clear they disapproved of the behavior. First Eliezer said that he was trying to track down the block downvoter (he failed for some reason), then Kaj put up this post. And Eugine kept down-voting. I don’t see how this doesn’t read as disregard for the community.
Perhaps he thought he was somehow making the community better by his actions (although it’s much more plausible to me that he was just ridiculously mind-killed, since virtually all of the block-downvoting appears to be motivated by political disagreement), but he was still doing it in the face of the community’s express wishes, and to the evident detriment of community relations. Thinking that his behavior would make the community better/more successful is so disconnected from the reality of what was actually happening that it qualifies as pathological disregard for the community, I think. Disregard for what people think and how they feel, and disregard for the observable consequences of his behavior.
I don’t see a contradiction here. If someone is mind-killed, then from inside it seems like all people with different political opinions are idiots, and the debate would be more rational without them.
Thus in my opinion Eugine completely failed in the lessons about mindkilling and ethical injunctions, and was incompatible with the spirit of Less Wrong.