EDIT: If you’re actually excited because you are interested in the response you got and what it might mean, genuine congratulations. Way to care more about learning than about signalling.
Well, it all depends on why it was downvoted. If it was a question of style and tone, I’ll take that on board and take more care. If they felt the argument was incorrect, that’s also relevant. Since I can’t estimate how many downvoted for this reason, I’ll use the critiques in the comment section as information.
But there’s a bit too many downvotes for that. Downvoting from −6 to −7 is generally a sign that you really, really disliked the post (and the comment section didn’t show such dislike). I can think of two possible reasons that can explain this level of dislike: maybe many see the post as troll bait/tribal, or maybe there are a few on LW who actually disbelieve AGW. In the first case, I apologise, and should have made it more clear that one of my points was that we shouldn’t abandon stating the rational AGW position simply because it’s tribal and attracts trolls. In the second case, it’s worrying for the less wrong community.
Possibly. But I’m not convinced this school has much effect on the downward votes (there seems to be a reluctance to move posts below −2 or −3 unless they’re very disliked).
I considered downvoting your post after reading steven0461′s comment; his basic point is definitely worth keeping in mind. But I decided against it as I think your basic line of thinking was fair, and in fact I probably would’ve upvoted your post had you
elaborated on specifically which aspects of the AGW hypothesis you’d propose as rationality probes (e.g. whether human activity can raise CO₂ levels in the troposphere, whether tropospheric CO₂ levels have risen over the last x years, etc.)
made the weaker (and easier to defend) claim that AGW denial (with “AGW denial” having been fleshed out as suggested in the previous bullet point) was about as good an irrationality test as theism, rather than a better one
I expect the remaining objections to AGW-denial-as-rationality-test would apply just as much to theism-as-rationality-test, in which case it’d still be justified to say the former is as good as the latter. Theism correlates with partisan politics too, and if anything gives fewer bits of information about someone’s rationality (being basically a yes-no condition) than AGW-denial-as-rationality-test (which could be a sliding scale). I’m not 100% sure that trying to probe rationality in this way is worth the effort, but again, this objection applies as much to theism as AGW denial.
[Edit to rephrase “even more binary” in terms of giving less information.]
:-)
It’s quite interesting—it’s one of my most heavily downvoted posts ever!
Congratulations?
EDIT: If you’re actually excited because you are interested in the response you got and what it might mean, genuine congratulations. Way to care more about learning than about signalling.
Well, it all depends on why it was downvoted. If it was a question of style and tone, I’ll take that on board and take more care. If they felt the argument was incorrect, that’s also relevant. Since I can’t estimate how many downvoted for this reason, I’ll use the critiques in the comment section as information.
But there’s a bit too many downvotes for that. Downvoting from −6 to −7 is generally a sign that you really, really disliked the post (and the comment section didn’t show such dislike). I can think of two possible reasons that can explain this level of dislike: maybe many see the post as troll bait/tribal, or maybe there are a few on LW who actually disbelieve AGW. In the first case, I apologise, and should have made it more clear that one of my points was that we shouldn’t abandon stating the rational AGW position simply because it’s tribal and attracts trolls. In the second case, it’s worrying for the less wrong community.
Or that you’re a believer in the “vote without reference to existing score” school of thought on karma, which some LWers are.
Possibly. But I’m not convinced this school has much effect on the downward votes (there seems to be a reluctance to move posts below −2 or −3 unless they’re very disliked).
I considered downvoting your post after reading steven0461′s comment; his basic point is definitely worth keeping in mind. But I decided against it as I think your basic line of thinking was fair, and in fact I probably would’ve upvoted your post had you
elaborated on specifically which aspects of the AGW hypothesis you’d propose as rationality probes (e.g. whether human activity can raise CO₂ levels in the troposphere, whether tropospheric CO₂ levels have risen over the last x years, etc.)
made the weaker (and easier to defend) claim that AGW denial (with “AGW denial” having been fleshed out as suggested in the previous bullet point) was about as good an irrationality test as theism, rather than a better one
I expect the remaining objections to AGW-denial-as-rationality-test would apply just as much to theism-as-rationality-test, in which case it’d still be justified to say the former is as good as the latter. Theism correlates with partisan politics too, and if anything gives fewer bits of information about someone’s rationality (being basically a yes-no condition) than AGW-denial-as-rationality-test (which could be a sliding scale). I’m not 100% sure that trying to probe rationality in this way is worth the effort, but again, this objection applies as much to theism as AGW denial.
[Edit to rephrase “even more binary” in terms of giving less information.]
Fair points.
Downvoting the parent comment to −2 seems pretty churlish to be honest.