This is a bit of a tangential ramble on why diversity might be kind of a good idea.
Taboo “diversity”. Specifically are you saying that having norms that prevent certain views from being expressed increases diversity by making the community more welcoming for members of minorities or are you saying that preventing certain views from being expressed decreases diversity.
You start by setting the goal of the post as arguing in favor of diversity. The fact that you don’t discuss what that idea means is the point of my post.
Oh, I see what you mean. I think you’re linking this comment to the original post more strongly than I meant. By calling it “tangential” I meant to distance it a bit, since it wasn’t an argument for particular tactics towards getting diversity (e.g. “having norms that prevent certain views from being expressed”, as you put it). Rather, it was an explication of why diversity might be desirable to have.
I take the opposite of diversity to be something like unanimity. A reason to seek diverse views rather than unanimous ones is that diverse views carry more information. They’ve got a bunch of wrong ideas too, of course; but their errors are less correlated than those of a unanimous population.
Good point on majority voting. It matters a lot whether a comment has 18 upvotes and 14 downvotes or 14 upvotes and 18 downvotes. So a relatively narrow majority on polarized subjects can give you important control over the conversation.
Taboo “diversity”. Specifically are you saying that having norms that prevent certain views from being expressed increases diversity by making the community more welcoming for members of minorities or are you saying that preventing certain views from being expressed decreases diversity.
The comment you’re replying to actually doesn’t discuss that idea at all. Did you attach this reply to the wrong comment?
You start by setting the goal of the post as arguing in favor of diversity. The fact that you don’t discuss what that idea means is the point of my post.
Oh, I see what you mean. I think you’re linking this comment to the original post more strongly than I meant. By calling it “tangential” I meant to distance it a bit, since it wasn’t an argument for particular tactics towards getting diversity (e.g. “having norms that prevent certain views from being expressed”, as you put it). Rather, it was an explication of why diversity might be desirable to have.
I take the opposite of diversity to be something like unanimity. A reason to seek diverse views rather than unanimous ones is that diverse views carry more information. They’ve got a bunch of wrong ideas too, of course; but their errors are less correlated than those of a unanimous population.
I don’t see anyone on lesswrong arguing that lesswrong should have more unanimity. To me that seems like a strawman.
Well here for instance.
Which is currently downvoted below threshold.
Chris’ comment has, to be sure, around 18 downvotes but it also has around 14 upvotes, so many people probably agree with him.
Maybe showing (upvotes—downvotes) by default and upvotes/(upvotes + downvotes)*100% on mouseover isn’t the optimal way to do it. (Also, this means that “The difference between 55% and 44% seems unimportant, because we don’t use majority voting in LW anyway” isn’t fully true.)
Good point on majority voting. It matters a lot whether a comment has 18 upvotes and 14 downvotes or 14 upvotes and 18 downvotes. So a relatively narrow majority on polarized subjects can give you important control over the conversation.
The proper way to fix this is to agree to downvote all mindkilled comments regardless of whether they “support our side”.
If we cannot agree on this norm… goodbye rationality.
If we can agree on voting on comments by criteria other than “my tribe or the other tribe”, then we have a chance for a meaningful discussion.
Specifically:
Someone posts a comment promoting tribe X, without any rationalist merit. -- Proper reaction: downvote.
Someone posts a comment suggesting we need to discourage members of tribe X from participating on LW. -- Proper reaction: also a downvote.