I think the direct reason for your disappointment is simply that the people that would have upvoted you just didn’t find the conversation interesting enough to follow. Or to put it differently, they’re mistake theorists and didn’t see anything there to learn or fix. The other guys don’t have to be worse people or less intelligent—just more conflict theorists, which I think they probably are. Ergo more upvotes, even deeper in conversation.
As an example: I realized I didn’t even upvote you. I agreed with you, thought your points were perfectly sensible, enjoyed the occasional inadvertent humour … and closed the window. It didn’t even occur to me to “help” your side in the conflict… because I wasn’t there to fight a fight. (Took me a year off reddit and on SSC to get to this point, and I’m still more combative than I’d like to be).
Conflict theorists, cashed out as something like “people who saw the article as an attempted power grab and so upvoted the person attacking it” feels like it fits, but… I dunno, I try to be hesitant to use conflict theory as an explanation, because it’s so easy to make it fit. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
I appreciated your words more than I would have done upvotes; thank you.
That was instructive.
I think the direct reason for your disappointment is simply that the people that would have upvoted you just didn’t find the conversation interesting enough to follow. Or to put it differently, they’re mistake theorists and didn’t see anything there to learn or fix. The other guys don’t have to be worse people or less intelligent—just more conflict theorists, which I think they probably are. Ergo more upvotes, even deeper in conversation.
As an example: I realized I didn’t even upvote you. I agreed with you, thought your points were perfectly sensible, enjoyed the occasional inadvertent humour … and closed the window. It didn’t even occur to me to “help” your side in the conflict… because I wasn’t there to fight a fight. (Took me a year off reddit and on SSC to get to this point, and I’m still more combative than I’d like to be).
Conflict theorists, cashed out as something like “people who saw the article as an attempted power grab and so upvoted the person attacking it” feels like it fits, but… I dunno, I try to be hesitant to use conflict theory as an explanation, because it’s so easy to make it fit. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
I appreciated your words more than I would have done upvotes; thank you.