A lot of people upvoted this post (it’s at −1 and 47% positive). Why would you do such a thing?
Here I want to highlight a different possibility … The large ones are, let’s say, mostly dark matter, galactic in scale, and stars and planets for them are like biomolecules for us … And it explains anthropically why you’re human-size rather than galactic-size … Two questions arise—how did large life evolve, and, shouldn’t anthropics favor universes which have no large life, just space-colonizing small life?
(The post seems like a clear case of privileging a hypothesis, which is additionally implausible. That Mortimer Q. Snodgrass did itcould indeed explain the murder, except in this case Mr. Snodgrass is additionally postulated to be an (ordinary) undead pharaoh; and the questions arise about where was Mr. Snodgrass the night of the murder etc.)
A lot of people upvoted [...] Why would you do such a thing?
I upvoted because when I saw it it was sitting at −3 or thereabouts and I thought the right place for it was more like −1 or 0. (I think it’s almost certainly wrong, but the idea is interesting to think about and I wouldn’t bet more than 20:1 against there being some substantially better idea that it might provoke someone to have.) If I come back tomorrow and see it at +2 I’ll change my vote.
There is something to be said for a strict policy of “vote for things you want to see more of, against for things you want to see less of” without regard for others’ opinions, but in practice I bet there’s enough of an information-cascade effect (where people are influenced by prior votes to vote in the same direction as the others) that I don’t mind occasionally pushing against the flow, in either direction.
A rating that close to 0 is unstable (it can fluctuate towards the positive), and the strategy of keeping the rating near zero negates the signal of how many people judge a post bad. Keeping it above at least minus 15 or so seems more defensible.
This would be some kind of “awesomeness heuristic/bias” where you believe something to be worth considering because it’s awesome in some way and not because there are reasons for expecting it to be true. Such things are worth bringing to attention as fiction, but not as hypotheses about the world.
I agree that the views share a similar non-rational attraction that is likely to appeal to the Less Wrong crowd regardless of what degree of evidence supports the view. But I don’t think the actual degrees of evidence are similar.
A lot of people upvoted this post (it’s at −1 and 47% positive). Why would you do such a thing?
(The post seems like a clear case of privileging a hypothesis, which is additionally implausible. That Mortimer Q. Snodgrass did it could indeed explain the murder, except in this case Mr. Snodgrass is additionally postulated to be an (ordinary) undead pharaoh; and the questions arise about where was Mr. Snodgrass the night of the murder etc.)
I upvoted because when I saw it it was sitting at −3 or thereabouts and I thought the right place for it was more like −1 or 0. (I think it’s almost certainly wrong, but the idea is interesting to think about and I wouldn’t bet more than 20:1 against there being some substantially better idea that it might provoke someone to have.) If I come back tomorrow and see it at +2 I’ll change my vote.
There is something to be said for a strict policy of “vote for things you want to see more of, against for things you want to see less of” without regard for others’ opinions, but in practice I bet there’s enough of an information-cascade effect (where people are influenced by prior votes to vote in the same direction as the others) that I don’t mind occasionally pushing against the flow, in either direction.
A rating that close to 0 is unstable (it can fluctuate towards the positive), and the strategy of keeping the rating near zero negates the signal of how many people judge a post bad. Keeping it above at least minus 15 or so seems more defensible.
Most things that sound like updated Lovecraft are probably only being paid attention to because people have fun imagining ancient space gods.
This would be some kind of “awesomeness heuristic/bias” where you believe something to be worth considering because it’s awesome in some way and not because there are reasons for expecting it to be true. Such things are worth bringing to attention as fiction, but not as hypotheses about the world.
Yes, that was the point I was making.
Do you feel similarly, about people who think that Earth life has a chance of conquering the universe?
I agree that the views share a similar non-rational attraction that is likely to appeal to the Less Wrong crowd regardless of what degree of evidence supports the view. But I don’t think the actual degrees of evidence are similar.