I think that the issue here is a more general one, about the structure, purpose, and norms of the new LW.
This is not a LW post, it’s a Putanumonit post. I rarely write about culture war on Putanumonit, but I also don’t censor myself. Now when it comes to cross-posting on LW, it seems that there are two possible goals for LW that are in conflict:
1. LW being a central hub and one-stop-shop for the entire rationalist diaspora, and all rationalist bloggers are encourage to cross-post everything to it.
2. LW being CW-free, and all members are encouraged to keep politics and culture war entirely out of it.
In terms of what *will* happen, I am happy to follow the will of the LW leadership team. If they ask me to remove this post or change it to a link post, I will.
In terms of what *should* happen, I strongly support #1. There can be a norm that CWish content is kept out of Frontpage and Curated, but I think there’s a big benefit to having everything on LW. I write to engage smart people in my ideas, and that’s exactly what is happening here. Despite the touchiness of the post’s subject, the comments so far are mostly civil and relevant. Rationalists should be able to write non-mind-killed things about CW-related subjects (I hope this one qualifies) and have non-mind-killed conversations about them.
Ultimately, this is a big part of what rationalists *are* talking about: in private blogs, on Reddit, in real life. If LW is our home, there should be a place for those topics on LW, even if with higher standards and stricter norms of discussion.
Even if it’s civil and non-mind-killed, I don’t want 90% of recent posts and comments to be about the culture war. And I don’t see why it would stop short of that. Some people will contribute less due to CW noise; some new people will register just to discuss CW; CW posts are easier to write than math posts, they just flow off the fingers once you feel angry enough; we all know what happened with /r/ssc, where the CW thread dominates everything else. Sorry about the tone, I don’t want to offend here, but to me all the arguments point in one direction.
Voting is the worst mechanism for this decision, but I vote for #2. LW is for reflections on and advice for having true beliefs (being less wrong), and POSSIBLY for raising the sanity waterline, in helping others to have true beliefs.
It’s a place to be rational, not to support rationalism.
Jacob, you’re a nice person, and I’m as interested in culture war as the next guy, but it will take over LW if we let it.
I think that the issue here is a more general one, about the structure, purpose, and norms of the new LW.
This is not a LW post, it’s a Putanumonit post. I rarely write about culture war on Putanumonit, but I also don’t censor myself. Now when it comes to cross-posting on LW, it seems that there are two possible goals for LW that are in conflict:
1. LW being a central hub and one-stop-shop for the entire rationalist diaspora, and all rationalist bloggers are encourage to cross-post everything to it.
2. LW being CW-free, and all members are encouraged to keep politics and culture war entirely out of it.
In terms of what *will* happen, I am happy to follow the will of the LW leadership team. If they ask me to remove this post or change it to a link post, I will.
In terms of what *should* happen, I strongly support #1. There can be a norm that CWish content is kept out of Frontpage and Curated, but I think there’s a big benefit to having everything on LW. I write to engage smart people in my ideas, and that’s exactly what is happening here. Despite the touchiness of the post’s subject, the comments so far are mostly civil and relevant. Rationalists should be able to write non-mind-killed things about CW-related subjects (I hope this one qualifies) and have non-mind-killed conversations about them.
Ultimately, this is a big part of what rationalists *are* talking about: in private blogs, on Reddit, in real life. If LW is our home, there should be a place for those topics on LW, even if with higher standards and stricter norms of discussion.
Even if it’s civil and non-mind-killed, I don’t want 90% of recent posts and comments to be about the culture war. And I don’t see why it would stop short of that. Some people will contribute less due to CW noise; some new people will register just to discuss CW; CW posts are easier to write than math posts, they just flow off the fingers once you feel angry enough; we all know what happened with /r/ssc, where the CW thread dominates everything else. Sorry about the tone, I don’t want to offend here, but to me all the arguments point in one direction.
I appreciate that the post started with this.
Voting is the worst mechanism for this decision, but I vote for #2. LW is for reflections on and advice for having true beliefs (being less wrong), and POSSIBLY for raising the sanity waterline, in helping others to have true beliefs.
It’s a place to be rational, not to support rationalism.