While obviously the legacy of history always remains a social force to some extent, it’s open to question exactly how potent that force is. Clearly it’s less potent than it used to be—but acknowledging this is frowned upon in some circles because it sounds like a concession to the enemy.
(By the way, as this comment demonstrates, it is possible to access accounts automatically created from the importation of Overcoming Bias posts into Less Wrong. One simply uses the password reset function, checks the appropriate e-mail address, and follows the instructions in the message that is automatically sent there. A duplicate account such as “komponisto2” apparently results from a different email address being used to create the LW account “komponisto” from that associated with the OB comments from “komponisto”. Had the same e-mail address been used, old comments such as the grandparent would have been added to the new LW account when the importation took place. Let this be noted by anyone who commented on OB and has not yet created an account on LW.)
While obviously the legacy of history always remains a social force to some extent, it’s open to question exactly how potent that force is. Clearly it’s less potent than it used to be—but acknowledging this is frowned upon in some circles because it sounds like a concession to the enemy.
(By the way, as this comment demonstrates, it is possible to access accounts automatically created from the importation of Overcoming Bias posts into Less Wrong. One simply uses the password reset function, checks the appropriate e-mail address, and follows the instructions in the message that is automatically sent there. A duplicate account such as “komponisto2” apparently results from a different email address being used to create the LW account “komponisto” from that associated with the OB comments from “komponisto”. Had the same e-mail address been used, old comments such as the grandparent would have been added to the new LW account when the importation took place. Let this be noted by anyone who commented on OB and has not yet created an account on LW.)