Someone downvoted all my comments in this thread. This is the first time this has happened to me. I am not sure what exactly they meant to discourage. What is the proper procedure in this case?
I did not vote, but here is the thing I disliked about your comments: You write shortly, without context, using a phrase “acausal trade” like it is supposed to mean something well-known though I never heard it before, and when amcknight asks for some directions, you post a link to a page that does not contain any of these words.
Based on this information, my guess is that you are intentionally cryptical (signalling deep wisdom), which I dislike, especially on a site like this.
The reason I did not downvote is because at this moment I do not trust my reasoning, because I am too tired. Also it seemed to me that your apology somehow made things worse; it’s as if you admit that you are doing something wrong, but you continue doing it anyway. You seem to suggest that agreeing with “acausal trade” is somehow necessary if one understands what it means, and instead of explaining why (which could be interesting for readers) you just push the burden of proof away; in my opinion, since you have inroduced this phrase in this topic, the burden is obviously on you.
But this is just my impression, and the person who did downvote might have different reasons.
Thank you for this. Even if this is not why someone had a negative reaction toward me, I appreciate such feedback.
I am definitely not trying to be cryptic. There are a lot of posts about decision theory on LW going back a few years, which resulted in the (continuing) development of updateless decision theory. It is a fascinating subject and it is about, among other things, exactly the same topic that this post covered. I expect lesswrongers discussing decision theory to be aware of what has already been done on this website.
By your metric, I fear this may sound as dismissive as the rest of what I wrote. Does it?
By your metric, I fear this may sound as dismissive as the rest of what I wrote. Does it?
No it doesn’t. I feel I understand this comment completely.
Thanks for not being angry for my comment, because by standard metric it was impolite. Somehow I felt the information is more important… and I am happy you took it this way.
This is why Eliezer always uses hyperlinks, even when sometimes it seems strange. :D The LessWrong site is too big, and many people are not here from the beginning. With so many articles even people who seriously try to read the Sequences can miss a few ideas.
Thank you for this advise. I will definitely try to hyperlink a lot more in the future.
By your metric, I fear this may sound as dismissive as the rest of what I wrote. Does it?
No it doesn’t. I feel I understand this comment completely.
There’s a good chance I went back and edited a few things after writing this sentence. :)
Thanks for not being angry for my comment, because by standard metric it was impolite. Somehow I felt the information is more important… and I am happy you took it this way.
I think this type of feedback should be the norm here. It might just be me, but I think the number of LWers who would appreciate this type of constructive criticism is greater than the number who would be offended, especially after weighting based on commenting frequency.
This type of feedback can be invited explicitly in a comment. It was suggested that LW users should be able to invite it permanently through a user profile, but this suggestion was not implemented yet.
If, upon reflection, you have no clue why you have been downvoted, then I suggest to ignore the information as noise and continue to to express your point (maybe more thoroughly in future, in case someone just misunderstood you). I would recommend to do this until someone explains why they think that you are wrong (at least if you don’t value your karma score more than additional information on why you might be mistaken).
I think the ideas that I was expressing were rather representative of the LWers who think a lot about decision theory, so I don’t expect to encounter someone who opposes them this strongly very often. I have a few theories that might explain why I was downvoted, but none are particularly probable and none give me reason to change my mind about decision theory.
Someone downvoted all my comments in this thread. This is the first time this has happened to me. I am not sure what exactly they meant to discourage. What is the proper procedure in this case?
I did not vote, but here is the thing I disliked about your comments: You write shortly, without context, using a phrase “acausal trade” like it is supposed to mean something well-known though I never heard it before, and when amcknight asks for some directions, you post a link to a page that does not contain any of these words.
Based on this information, my guess is that you are intentionally cryptical (signalling deep wisdom), which I dislike, especially on a site like this.
The reason I did not downvote is because at this moment I do not trust my reasoning, because I am too tired. Also it seemed to me that your apology somehow made things worse; it’s as if you admit that you are doing something wrong, but you continue doing it anyway. You seem to suggest that agreeing with “acausal trade” is somehow necessary if one understands what it means, and instead of explaining why (which could be interesting for readers) you just push the burden of proof away; in my opinion, since you have inroduced this phrase in this topic, the burden is obviously on you.
But this is just my impression, and the person who did downvote might have different reasons.
Thank you for this. Even if this is not why someone had a negative reaction toward me, I appreciate such feedback.
I am definitely not trying to be cryptic. There are a lot of posts about decision theory on LW going back a few years, which resulted in the (continuing) development of updateless decision theory. It is a fascinating subject and it is about, among other things, exactly the same topic that this post covered. I expect lesswrongers discussing decision theory to be aware of what has already been done on this website.
By your metric, I fear this may sound as dismissive as the rest of what I wrote. Does it?
This is why Eliezer always uses hyperlinks, even when sometimes it seems strange. :D The LessWrong site is too big, and many people are not here from the beginning. With so many articles even people who seriously try to read the Sequences can miss a few ideas.
No it doesn’t. I feel I understand this comment completely.
Thanks for not being angry for my comment, because by standard metric it was impolite. Somehow I felt the information is more important… and I am happy you took it this way.
Thank you for this advise. I will definitely try to hyperlink a lot more in the future.
There’s a good chance I went back and edited a few things after writing this sentence. :)
I think this type of feedback should be the norm here. It might just be me, but I think the number of LWers who would appreciate this type of constructive criticism is greater than the number who would be offended, especially after weighting based on commenting frequency.
This type of feedback can be invited explicitly in a comment. It was suggested that LW users should be able to invite it permanently through a user profile, but this suggestion was not implemented yet.
If, upon reflection, you have no clue why you have been downvoted, then I suggest to ignore the information as noise and continue to to express your point (maybe more thoroughly in future, in case someone just misunderstood you). I would recommend to do this until someone explains why they think that you are wrong (at least if you don’t value your karma score more than additional information on why you might be mistaken).
I think the ideas that I was expressing were rather representative of the LWers who think a lot about decision theory, so I don’t expect to encounter someone who opposes them this strongly very often. I have a few theories that might explain why I was downvoted, but none are particularly probable and none give me reason to change my mind about decision theory.