When I think about problems like these, I use what feels to me like a natural generalization of the economic idea of efficient markets. The goal is to predict what kinds of efficiency we should expect to exist in realms beyond the marketplace, and what we can deduce from simple observations. For lack of a better term, I will call this kind of thinking inadequacy analysis.
I think this is pretty applicable to highly visible blog posts, such as ones that make the home page in popular communities such as LessWrong and Hacker News.
Like, if something makes the front page as one of the top posts, it attracts lots of eyeballs. With lots of eyeballs, you get more prestige and social status for saying something smart. So if a post has lots of attention, I’d expect lots of the smart-things-to-be-said to have been said in the comments.
I think this is pretty applicable to highly visible blog posts, such as ones that make the home page in popular communities such as LessWrong and Hacker News.
Like, if something makes the front page as one of the top posts, it attracts lots of eyeballs. With lots of eyeballs, you get more prestige and social status for saying something smart. So if a post has lots of attention, I’d expect lots of the smart-things-to-be-said to have been said in the comments.