I noticed this also but intentionally did not bring it up because I consider this area to be extremely negative. Hearing that someone is getting into “tulpamancy” is for me a gigantic red flag and in practice seems linked to people going insane—not sure if it’s causal or correlational or what but I would very much like the community to avoid this area.
I agree that a community can and should avoid certain topics. For example, the “politics is the mind-killer” no-politics rule. And this is probably true, independent of whether one understands why something is dangerous. But there are two aspects here: Understanding why something is dangerous and actually trying out the dangerous thing. Granted, one can easily lead to the other. There is also the other side of the coin: Understanding why something is healthy/beneficial. LW is also about that (see Lifestyle interventions to increase longevity). There is a lot of grey—or the healthy part is an island in a big grey sea. By excluding discussion of interventions, you exclude a lot of good. And by excluding discussion or mention of the grey around a good, you risk people wandering into it unwarned.
I noticed this also but intentionally did not bring it up because I consider this area to be extremely negative. Hearing that someone is getting into “tulpamancy” is for me a gigantic red flag and in practice seems linked to people going insane—not sure if it’s causal or correlational or what but I would very much like the community to avoid this area.
I agree that a community can and should avoid certain topics. For example, the “politics is the mind-killer” no-politics rule. And this is probably true, independent of whether one understands why something is dangerous. But there are two aspects here: Understanding why something is dangerous and actually trying out the dangerous thing. Granted, one can easily lead to the other. There is also the other side of the coin: Understanding why something is healthy/beneficial. LW is also about that (see Lifestyle interventions to increase longevity). There is a lot of grey—or the healthy part is an island in a big grey sea. By excluding discussion of interventions, you exclude a lot of good. And by excluding discussion or mention of the grey around a good, you risk people wandering into it unwarned.