I suppose the biggest question is, is all this realistic? Or is just an idealist’s dream?
While beautifully written; it does sound all an idealist’s dream. Or at least you have said very little to suggest otherwise.
More downvotes would send you to negative karma if there is such a place, and that’s a harsh punishment for someone so eloquent. In sparing you a downvote, I encourage you to figure out what went wrong with this post and learn from it.
If there’s three things I’ve found in my little time here it is that the community strongly admires in posts is novelty (the post discusses new material or adds to material in a way that is not covered in other posts), specifics (the post explains a plan for action or a set of facts to be learned rather than more vague philosophic generalities), and balance (the post examines the pros and cons of making a change, rather than appearing one-sided). You’re post seems little on all of the three.
I feel sorry you had to learn this by being taken for every karma point you own. I strongly suggest you make use of the Discussion Seciton for your future posts; that’s a great place to learn what does work and what doesn’t. My first two posts got downvoted, but I didn’t lose out because votes are only −1 karma there. Read the LW About Page if you haven’t already.
And remember that karma is not the end-all be-all of LW. I think you benefitted a lot by trading your karma for knowledge of how the LW community works. Karma itself is not a terminal value, but a means to fitting in with LW, which is also not a terminal value, but a means to furthering your rationality, which is also likely not a terminal value, but a means to getting better at satisfying your goals.
To further clarify my criticism just to make sure your karma freefall was worth it, this post would have benefitted by, among other things, being fifty times more practical—what do you think is the first step toward gaining control of all the world’s institutions? If you don’t even know that, why are you writing about world domination? Maybe you can talk a lot more about how to sell rationality to the public so that they react to the conspiracy favorably rather than negatively, for instance.
I think you have a gift for writing in a very eloquent, enjoyable manner, so I would hate for you to leave just because of one fiasco. I implore you to reflect, refocus, and give it another shot.
By the way, sorry that this comment treats you like you’re new to LW—I can see from going through your comment and post history that you’re not. My mistake.
That’s quite all right; I’m sure the naivete blossoming forth from the OP makes that an easy mistake to make. :P
I’m well aware of the Discussion Section… which only compounds my error. Yes, this should have been posted there. Losing some eighty Karma (by the way, apparently negative Karma does not exist per se, but perhaps it does de facto… is as good a wakeup call as any for the sin of overconfidence.
I would have traded my karma simply for the advice you’ve given here. Thank you. And thank you for the compliment on my writing style; nice to see not everything about this experience was negative. I assure you that I will not be leaving any time soon. When I first saw that this post was getting a negative response, I made a split-second decision: should I flee, or should I learn? I choose to learn.
I think even though the karma counter never goes below zero, downvotes still count and it won’t go above zero until you get enough upvotes to cancel them out.
I can confirm that hypothesis; I’m still at zero, even though the grandfather to this post has received 4 points, given after I lost all my karma. Actually, this is a bit of an annoyance; I have no way to gauge how far I have to go to get into the positives...
I am still relatively new to LW, though—or else I’m just not very good at picking up on social values—so I’ll ask this question of you: What stigma would be attached to my decision to delete this post? I don’t want to do it just to get my Karma back; I’m willing to accept the consequences of my mistake. On the pro side, this would no longer come up under my posts, and so people who have not already seen it would fail to judge me by it. This is only a positive because I have in fact learned much from the response, and plan to act upon those lessons. On the con side, it might be viewed as… I almost want to say cowardly? Failing to take responsibility for my actions? Running away?
I’m not sure, though, what the implications of that action would be to the rest of the community, so I need an outside opinion.
EDIT: I recognize that it is good to recognize that I have made stupid decisions for bad reasons. I do not know if it is a virtue to keep your mistakes around and visible.
If this potential confusion is your real reason and not a convenient rationalization, I would suggest an EDIT along the lines of ” convinced me that was not a good one to hold, and I no longer think that Bayesian conspiracy is a good idea outside of the HPMoR fanfiction”. If you still hold that it is, then bear it like a rationalist you aspire to be, since you presumably examined this model of action with an utmost care, to avoid any biases.
EDIT: I certainly do not plan to delete my discussion post with negative karma, though I did retract (not delete) one rather poorly thought out comment previously.
I’m newer than you and have not yet braved into the “Main” section, so I don’t really know. I didn’t know deleting a post could get you the karma back, that seems like a bad policy and counterproductive to what karma is supposed to do.
Still, I think you’ve “learned your lesson”, so to speak, so I personally wouldn’t mind at all.
While beautifully written; it does sound all an idealist’s dream. Or at least you have said very little to suggest otherwise.
More downvotes would send you to negative karma if there is such a place, and that’s a harsh punishment for someone so eloquent. In sparing you a downvote, I encourage you to figure out what went wrong with this post and learn from it.
I downvoted the OP. A major turn-off for me was the amount of rhetorical flourish. While well-written posts should include some embellishment for clarity and engagement, when there’s this much of it, the alarm bells go off...what is this person trying to convince me of by means other than reasoned argument?
Maybe, but I think that’s just because the post was also low on specifics. If Arandur brought the flourish and the specifics, I think it would be great, and would balance out the other stuff that can appear boring, dry, and overly technical.
Though it could just be a difference in preferences.
While beautifully written; it does sound all an idealist’s dream. Or at least you have said very little to suggest otherwise.
More downvotes would send you to negative karma if there is such a place, and that’s a harsh punishment for someone so eloquent. In sparing you a downvote, I encourage you to figure out what went wrong with this post and learn from it.
If there’s three things I’ve found in my little time here it is that the community strongly admires in posts is novelty (the post discusses new material or adds to material in a way that is not covered in other posts), specifics (the post explains a plan for action or a set of facts to be learned rather than more vague philosophic generalities), and balance (the post examines the pros and cons of making a change, rather than appearing one-sided). You’re post seems little on all of the three.
..… I will meditate on this constructive criticism. Thank you very much; I think this is the most useful response I’ve seen.
I feel sorry you had to learn this by being taken for every karma point you own. I strongly suggest you make use of the Discussion Seciton for your future posts; that’s a great place to learn what does work and what doesn’t. My first two posts got downvoted, but I didn’t lose out because votes are only −1 karma there. Read the LW About Page if you haven’t already.
And remember that karma is not the end-all be-all of LW. I think you benefitted a lot by trading your karma for knowledge of how the LW community works. Karma itself is not a terminal value, but a means to fitting in with LW, which is also not a terminal value, but a means to furthering your rationality, which is also likely not a terminal value, but a means to getting better at satisfying your goals.
To further clarify my criticism just to make sure your karma freefall was worth it, this post would have benefitted by, among other things, being fifty times more practical—what do you think is the first step toward gaining control of all the world’s institutions? If you don’t even know that, why are you writing about world domination? Maybe you can talk a lot more about how to sell rationality to the public so that they react to the conspiracy favorably rather than negatively, for instance.
I think you have a gift for writing in a very eloquent, enjoyable manner, so I would hate for you to leave just because of one fiasco. I implore you to reflect, refocus, and give it another shot.
By the way, sorry that this comment treats you like you’re new to LW—I can see from going through your comment and post history that you’re not. My mistake.
That’s quite all right; I’m sure the naivete blossoming forth from the OP makes that an easy mistake to make. :P
I’m well aware of the Discussion Section… which only compounds my error. Yes, this should have been posted there. Losing some eighty Karma (by the way, apparently negative Karma does not exist per se, but perhaps it does de facto… is as good a wakeup call as any for the sin of overconfidence.
I would have traded my karma simply for the advice you’ve given here. Thank you. And thank you for the compliment on my writing style; nice to see not everything about this experience was negative. I assure you that I will not be leaving any time soon. When I first saw that this post was getting a negative response, I made a split-second decision: should I flee, or should I learn? I choose to learn.
I think even though the karma counter never goes below zero, downvotes still count and it won’t go above zero until you get enough upvotes to cancel them out.
I can confirm that hypothesis; I’m still at zero, even though the grandfather to this post has received 4 points, given after I lost all my karma. Actually, this is a bit of an annoyance; I have no way to gauge how far I have to go to get into the positives...
As long as you didn’t delete any other comments/posts, you can figure out what your karma is by adding up everything else.
I am still relatively new to LW, though—or else I’m just not very good at picking up on social values—so I’ll ask this question of you: What stigma would be attached to my decision to delete this post? I don’t want to do it just to get my Karma back; I’m willing to accept the consequences of my mistake. On the pro side, this would no longer come up under my posts, and so people who have not already seen it would fail to judge me by it. This is only a positive because I have in fact learned much from the response, and plan to act upon those lessons. On the con side, it might be viewed as… I almost want to say cowardly? Failing to take responsibility for my actions? Running away?
I’m not sure, though, what the implications of that action would be to the rest of the community, so I need an outside opinion.
EDIT: I recognize that it is good to recognize that I have made stupid decisions for bad reasons. I do not know if it is a virtue to keep your mistakes around and visible.
Good, because it wouldn’t do that.
Oh, good. :3 I was worried that doing so would give that false implication.
If this potential confusion is your real reason and not a convenient rationalization, I would suggest an EDIT along the lines of ” convinced me that was not a good one to hold, and I no longer think that Bayesian conspiracy is a good idea outside of the HPMoR fanfiction”. If you still hold that it is, then bear it like a rationalist you aspire to be, since you presumably examined this model of action with an utmost care, to avoid any biases.
EDIT: I certainly do not plan to delete my discussion post with negative karma, though I did retract (not delete) one rather poorly thought out comment previously.
Ha! Now I feel like a noob. How do I edit a top-level post? :3
If you click on your nick, you will see it among your other posts, and you can edit it there, I suppose.
Thank you.
I’m newer than you and have not yet braved into the “Main” section, so I don’t really know. I didn’t know deleting a post could get you the karma back, that seems like a bad policy and counterproductive to what karma is supposed to do.
Still, I think you’ve “learned your lesson”, so to speak, so I personally wouldn’t mind at all.
Apparently it can’t, which is a good thing, upon reflection.
Your list is good. I would also add that references to relevant studies are valued.
The OP was novel enough. On the A-F scale I give it a B in the novelty category. No mercy, a cold blooded-judgement, neither a B- nor a B+.
I would put references to relevant studies under “specifics” but it is definitely something I should of highlighted.
I downvoted the OP. A major turn-off for me was the amount of rhetorical flourish. While well-written posts should include some embellishment for clarity and engagement, when there’s this much of it, the alarm bells go off...what is this person trying to convince me of by means other than reasoned argument?
See also: the dark arts.
Maybe, but I think that’s just because the post was also low on specifics. If Arandur brought the flourish and the specifics, I think it would be great, and would balance out the other stuff that can appear boring, dry, and overly technical.
Though it could just be a difference in preferences.