Your reasons amount entirely to “The hecklers want to veto this” and “I don’t like this content”. We’ve had worse than this before.
I’m not serious very often, particularly here, but I am entirely serious when I say this: If you think the prohibitions on political discourse exist to prevent this content, you do not understand the prohibitions on political discourse; they exist to prevent these responses.
Your reasons amount entirely to “The hecklers want to veto this” and “I don’t like this content”.
That is plainly untrue.
The second and third things I said about this post kinda-sorta pattern-match to “the hecklers want to veto this” … provided you take care not to look too carefully. (One person found it the last straw and is leaving. Does that mean he “wants to veto” it? No, it means he’s gone. It fits into an anti-LW narrative that encourages people to stay away. Does that mean the people saying mean things about LW “want to veto” it? No; actually, they’re probably glad it’s there because it gives them another stick to beat LW with.)
The first and fourth kinda-sorta pattern-match to “gjm doesn’t like this content”, but again only if you take care not to look carefully. I gave specific reasons why I think it’s bad, and it is to those rather than to the fact that I don’t like this post that I appealed. Would you collapse all criticism into “X doesn’t like this content”? If so, then classifying a particular bit of criticism that way conveys zero information. If not, why does what I wrote deserve to be so collapsed?
We’ve had worse than this before.
So what?
If you think the prohibitions on political discourse exist to prevent this content, [...]
I didn’t say anything about “the prohibitions on political discourse”. In particular, when I say this is in no way on topic for LW, I don’t mean ”… because of the prohibitions on political discourse”. I mean it’s simply not on topic here. It isn’t about rationality (the notional main subject here), nor is it a discussion topic particularly suited to “refining the art of human rationality” (as the LW header has it). It isn’t about AI (the main focus of the people who pay for LW). It isn’t, to judge from all the downvotes, something LW users as a whole want to discuss here.
I’m going to be ruder than I usually am, and tell you that you only have one true argument here: That this is harmful to Less Wrong. Your perception, which you fairly plainly state, is that this is harmful to your identity group. Should I link you to the appropriate material about identity and mindkilling? Should I note the irony in the situation?
This is not Orphan amusing himself. This is Orphan telling you that this path will lead to ruin. Less Wrong will survive a user’s unpopular opinion if it deserves to survive at all, but it certainly will not survive a precedent of content-based mindkilled moderation.
This is not your Final Exam in rationality; there are no final exams in rationality in the real world. But this is -an- exam. Rationalize your prechosen answer or humor your teachers’ passwords at your peril.
you have only one true argument here: That this is harmful to Less Wrong.
Almost any argument that something should be subject to moderatorial action on Less Wrong can be summarized that way. Even so, you have managed to be incorrect: it is not harmful only to Less Wrong. In the (admittedly not very likely) event that some reader is inspired by it to think as the author seems to, that will be harmful to them (because it will mess up their relations with women) and potentially to any women they may encounter (for the same reason). And while that hypothetical reader can ipso facto be considered part of “Less Wrong”, those women can’t.
Your perception, which you fairly plainly state, is that this is harmful to your identity group.
You just made that up. (I’m not even sure what my “identity group” even is; I can’t think of any plausible candidate for which what you say applies.) I certainly haven’t “fairly plainly” stated what you claim I have.
content-based mindkilled moderation
How about content-based non-mindkilled moderation?
Do you consider that no one could have a serious problem with this material other than by being mindkilled?
Constructing a memetically safe space is … dangerous.
Sure. It’s just as well no one is proposing to do that.
The situation here is as follows. The OP is really bad, for several different reasons. Nancy made a comment that rather vaguely suggested that she might invoke her moderatorial powers somehow if the author didn’t justify some of what he wrote. But now you’re pointing to one of the things I say is bad about the OP and saying “it would be bad to ban people for just this”. Yup, it would, but no one was suggesting that.
I never suggested anything like “constructing a memetically safe space”. You might want to consider the possibility that some of the ridiculousness is of your own making.
If you can’t keep from commenting on things that are immaterial to the matter at hand in your arguments, you can’t complain when other people assume that the things you comment on are material to the matter at hand to you, and treat your arguments as such.
Even so, you have managed to be incorrect: it is not harmful only to Less Wrong. In the (admittedly not very likely) event that some reader is inspired by it to think as the author seems to, that will be harmful to them (because it will mess up their relations with women) and potentially to any women they may encounter (for the same reason). And while that hypothetical reader can ipso facto be considered part of “Less Wrong”, those women can’t.
Your argument proves too much.
How about content-based non-mindkilled moderation?
That would require the participants be not-mindkilled, which you clearly are, since you think moderating bad literature is a good idea.
Do you consider that no one could have a serious problem with this material other than by being mindkilled?
I find it badly written, but that’s not a moderation-worthy offense. It presents no serious argument and poses no threat of inspiration. It’s about as noteworthy as the average teenage goths’ poetry describing what dying would feel like, and cringeworthy for about the same reasons.
I’m forcing this conversation into two positions, in case you haven’t noticed: Either you concede it’s terrible but harmless and not -worth- moderating, or you now argue that it’s actually dangerous.
Do please go ahead and show what it proves that shouldn’t be proved.
since you think moderating bad literature is a good idea
I do wish you’d stop saying false things about what I think.
I’m forcing [...]
You seem very fond of boasting of how you’re manipulating this and forcing that and dark-artsing the other. I feel about this roughly the way you feel about Gleb T’s writing.
Either you concede it’s terrible but harmless and not -worth- moderating, or you now argue that it’s actually dangerous.
Nope. What I actually say is: (1) it’s probably harmless, but that doesn’t suffice to make it not worth moderating, and (2) there is a small but nonzero chance that someone takes it more seriously than it deserves and ends up harmed by it.
(Unless you are adopting a very broad definition of “harm” according to which, e.g., something that is merely boring and unpleasant and irrelevant is “harmful” because it wastes people’s time and attention. In that case, I would argue that the OP is harmful. Of course that’s not the same as “dangerous” and yes, I did notice that you opposed “harmless” to “dangerous” as if the two were one another’s negations.)
On #1: well-kept gardens die by pacifism and while Eliezer is there arguing mostly for energetic downvoting of bad material, I suggest that the same arguments can justify moderator action too. If someone is contributing a lot of low-quality material and nothing valuable, maybe it’s OK to ban them. If something posted is low-quality and irrelevant and liable to bring Less Wrong into disrepute, maybe it’s OK to delete it. If someone is persistently obnoxious, maybe it’s OK to ban them. None of this requires that the thing being sanctioned be dangerous.
On #2: people can be inspired by the unlikeliest things. (I went to a rather good concert once where one of the better pieces of music was a setting of what may be the worst poem I have ever read, firmly in teenage goth territory.)
You seem very fond of boasting of how you’re manipulating this and forcing that and dark-artsing the other. I feel about this roughly the way you feel about Gleb T’s writing.
If I were going to boast, it would be about how you changed your mind on multiple things simultaneously to avoid the obvious feint—and apparently didn’t notice. Your arguments at this point are so weak as to fall apart at the touch; “probably harmless” and “small but nonzero chance of harm” are such a weak standard of evidence for moderation that nothing would be permitted to be discussed here. It would be much harder to prove your prior version proved too much—but you did the work for me.
But go on and keep thinking that what I’m doing is boasting.
I didn’t argue at all there. I pointed out that your position changed in anticipation of an objection you expected me to raise, to forestall the objection from having merit.
The argument, you see, is already over. You played your part, I played mine, and the audience is looking for a new show, the conclusion for this one already having played out in the background.
If the article lead an respected LW member to leave it’s harmful to LW. It’s a quite simple argument. If you can’t see that harm it might be you who’s mindkilled.
You can argue that the harm isn’t big enough to justify censorship of the post but claiming that no harm is caused to the community is plain wrong.
If the article lead an respected LW member to leave it’s harmful to LW.
Granting concessions to anybody who threatens to leave the table is a harmful strategy.
It’s a quite simple argument.
The world is complex. Simple arguments are generally wrong.
If you can’t see that harm it might be you who’s mindkilled.
Unlikely, given both that I’m taking a position against overreaction, and have insulted our guest of honor multiple times throughout this thread. You’re the one with an emotional stake in this; my emotions started with concern, but at this point have settled on “amused” given that I don’t rate there being any real danger of moderation.
I downvoted Nancy. Nancy! I’ve never downvoted Nancy, she always has a cool head.
You can argue that the harm isn’t big enough to justify censorship of the post but claiming that no harm is caused to the community is plain wrong.
Anyone who leaves over this post isn’t worth having in the first place. You, at least, argue your point, defend the community. Richard just declared the community shit and left.
He might be wrong, or he might be right—it doesn’t matter. As the community exists, he didn’t provide value. Any harm that was done, to create a community such that this trivial nonsense caused him to leave, long predates this trivial nonsense.
Or, to put it another way—the issue isn’t that this post exists. The issue is that nothing existed to make it worth it to Richard to read posts like this. It’s not like the community is overrun with poor content, that you have to sift through to find the good stuff. It’s not like anybody will confuse this heavily-downvoted post with “the good stuff.” There isn’t any good stuff. There’s just people competing with one another to prove who can be the most outraged over bad literature.
You know what a good community would have done with this post? Downvoted it and moved on to the next thing.
This post isn’t a problem because it’s bad. This post is a problem because it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened here this week.
Granting concessions to anybody who threatens to leave the table is a harmful strategy.
You illustrate a classic example of being mind-killed, confusing questions with each other. You confuse factual questions with strategic considerations and consider the strategic considerations to be more important than the veracity.
Whether or not it’s a good strategy to grant concessions for threatening to leave is irrelevant to the factual question of whether leaving is harm.
Your reasons amount entirely to “The hecklers want to veto this” and “I don’t like this content”. We’ve had worse than this before.
I’m not serious very often, particularly here, but I am entirely serious when I say this: If you think the prohibitions on political discourse exist to prevent this content, you do not understand the prohibitions on political discourse; they exist to prevent these responses.
That is plainly untrue.
The second and third things I said about this post kinda-sorta pattern-match to “the hecklers want to veto this” … provided you take care not to look too carefully. (One person found it the last straw and is leaving. Does that mean he “wants to veto” it? No, it means he’s gone. It fits into an anti-LW narrative that encourages people to stay away. Does that mean the people saying mean things about LW “want to veto” it? No; actually, they’re probably glad it’s there because it gives them another stick to beat LW with.)
The first and fourth kinda-sorta pattern-match to “gjm doesn’t like this content”, but again only if you take care not to look carefully. I gave specific reasons why I think it’s bad, and it is to those rather than to the fact that I don’t like this post that I appealed. Would you collapse all criticism into “X doesn’t like this content”? If so, then classifying a particular bit of criticism that way conveys zero information. If not, why does what I wrote deserve to be so collapsed?
So what?
I didn’t say anything about “the prohibitions on political discourse”. In particular, when I say this is in no way on topic for LW, I don’t mean ”… because of the prohibitions on political discourse”. I mean it’s simply not on topic here. It isn’t about rationality (the notional main subject here), nor is it a discussion topic particularly suited to “refining the art of human rationality” (as the LW header has it). It isn’t about AI (the main focus of the people who pay for LW). It isn’t, to judge from all the downvotes, something LW users as a whole want to discuss here.
I’m going to be ruder than I usually am, and tell you that you only have one true argument here: That this is harmful to Less Wrong. Your perception, which you fairly plainly state, is that this is harmful to your identity group. Should I link you to the appropriate material about identity and mindkilling? Should I note the irony in the situation?
This is not Orphan amusing himself. This is Orphan telling you that this path will lead to ruin. Less Wrong will survive a user’s unpopular opinion if it deserves to survive at all, but it certainly will not survive a precedent of content-based mindkilled moderation.
This is not your Final Exam in rationality; there are no final exams in rationality in the real world. But this is -an- exam. Rationalize your prechosen answer or humor your teachers’ passwords at your peril.
Almost any argument that something should be subject to moderatorial action on Less Wrong can be summarized that way. Even so, you have managed to be incorrect: it is not harmful only to Less Wrong. In the (admittedly not very likely) event that some reader is inspired by it to think as the author seems to, that will be harmful to them (because it will mess up their relations with women) and potentially to any women they may encounter (for the same reason). And while that hypothetical reader can ipso facto be considered part of “Less Wrong”, those women can’t.
You just made that up. (I’m not even sure what my “identity group” even is; I can’t think of any plausible candidate for which what you say applies.) I certainly haven’t “fairly plainly” stated what you claim I have.
How about content-based non-mindkilled moderation?
Do you consider that no one could have a serious problem with this material other than by being mindkilled?
Is that reductio ad absurdum applied to basilisks..? X-D
Constructing a memetically safe space is… dangerous.
Sure. It’s just as well no one is proposing to do that.
The situation here is as follows. The OP is really bad, for several different reasons. Nancy made a comment that rather vaguely suggested that she might invoke her moderatorial powers somehow if the author didn’t justify some of what he wrote. But now you’re pointing to one of the things I say is bad about the OP and saying “it would be bad to ban people for just this”. Yup, it would, but no one was suggesting that.
Actually, no. I’m pointing to one of the thing you say is bad about OP and saying “You’re being ridiculous. Stop digging.”
I never suggested anything like “constructing a memetically safe space”. You might want to consider the possibility that some of the ridiculousness is of your own making.
If you can’t keep from commenting on things that are immaterial to the matter at hand in your arguments, you can’t complain when other people assume that the things you comment on are material to the matter at hand to you, and treat your arguments as such.
Fortunately, I am not complaining about that.
Your argument proves too much.
That would require the participants be not-mindkilled, which you clearly are, since you think moderating bad literature is a good idea.
I find it badly written, but that’s not a moderation-worthy offense. It presents no serious argument and poses no threat of inspiration. It’s about as noteworthy as the average teenage goths’ poetry describing what dying would feel like, and cringeworthy for about the same reasons.
I’m forcing this conversation into two positions, in case you haven’t noticed: Either you concede it’s terrible but harmless and not -worth- moderating, or you now argue that it’s actually dangerous.
Do please go ahead and show what it proves that shouldn’t be proved.
I do wish you’d stop saying false things about what I think.
You seem very fond of boasting of how you’re manipulating this and forcing that and dark-artsing the other. I feel about this roughly the way you feel about Gleb T’s writing.
Nope. What I actually say is: (1) it’s probably harmless, but that doesn’t suffice to make it not worth moderating, and (2) there is a small but nonzero chance that someone takes it more seriously than it deserves and ends up harmed by it.
(Unless you are adopting a very broad definition of “harm” according to which, e.g., something that is merely boring and unpleasant and irrelevant is “harmful” because it wastes people’s time and attention. In that case, I would argue that the OP is harmful. Of course that’s not the same as “dangerous” and yes, I did notice that you opposed “harmless” to “dangerous” as if the two were one another’s negations.)
On #1: well-kept gardens die by pacifism and while Eliezer is there arguing mostly for energetic downvoting of bad material, I suggest that the same arguments can justify moderator action too. If someone is contributing a lot of low-quality material and nothing valuable, maybe it’s OK to ban them. If something posted is low-quality and irrelevant and liable to bring Less Wrong into disrepute, maybe it’s OK to delete it. If someone is persistently obnoxious, maybe it’s OK to ban them. None of this requires that the thing being sanctioned be dangerous.
On #2: people can be inspired by the unlikeliest things. (I went to a rather good concert once where one of the better pieces of music was a setting of what may be the worst poem I have ever read, firmly in teenage goth territory.)
If I were going to boast, it would be about how you changed your mind on multiple things simultaneously to avoid the obvious feint—and apparently didn’t notice. Your arguments at this point are so weak as to fall apart at the touch; “probably harmless” and “small but nonzero chance of harm” are such a weak standard of evidence for moderation that nothing would be permitted to be discussed here. It would be much harder to prove your prior version proved too much—but you did the work for me.
But go on and keep thinking that what I’m doing is boasting.
You are, not for the first time in this thread, arguing against things I have not said.
I didn’t argue at all there. I pointed out that your position changed in anticipation of an objection you expected me to raise, to forestall the objection from having merit.
The argument, you see, is already over. You played your part, I played mine, and the audience is looking for a new show, the conclusion for this one already having played out in the background.
You got me there!
If the article lead an respected LW member to leave it’s harmful to LW. It’s a quite simple argument. If you can’t see that harm it might be you who’s mindkilled.
You can argue that the harm isn’t big enough to justify censorship of the post but claiming that no harm is caused to the community is plain wrong.
Granting concessions to anybody who threatens to leave the table is a harmful strategy.
The world is complex. Simple arguments are generally wrong.
Unlikely, given both that I’m taking a position against overreaction, and have insulted our guest of honor multiple times throughout this thread. You’re the one with an emotional stake in this; my emotions started with concern, but at this point have settled on “amused” given that I don’t rate there being any real danger of moderation.
I downvoted Nancy. Nancy! I’ve never downvoted Nancy, she always has a cool head.
Anyone who leaves over this post isn’t worth having in the first place. You, at least, argue your point, defend the community. Richard just declared the community shit and left.
He might be wrong, or he might be right—it doesn’t matter. As the community exists, he didn’t provide value. Any harm that was done, to create a community such that this trivial nonsense caused him to leave, long predates this trivial nonsense.
Or, to put it another way—the issue isn’t that this post exists. The issue is that nothing existed to make it worth it to Richard to read posts like this. It’s not like the community is overrun with poor content, that you have to sift through to find the good stuff. It’s not like anybody will confuse this heavily-downvoted post with “the good stuff.” There isn’t any good stuff. There’s just people competing with one another to prove who can be the most outraged over bad literature.
You know what a good community would have done with this post? Downvoted it and moved on to the next thing.
This post isn’t a problem because it’s bad. This post is a problem because it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened here this week.
You illustrate a classic example of being mind-killed, confusing questions with each other. You confuse factual questions with strategic considerations and consider the strategic considerations to be more important than the veracity.
Whether or not it’s a good strategy to grant concessions for threatening to leave is irrelevant to the factual question of whether leaving is harm.
A”good strategy” means “a strategy which harms us the least”. It’s not the leaving that is being considered harm, it;s the granting of concessions.
It might very well be that both leaving and granting concessions are harm on a factual level.
If the OP wouldn’t have posted neither or those harmful things would have happened. The post produced harm.