Dealing with meta-discussion and the signal to noise ratio

[metatroll]

Meta-discussion is nasty. Allegedly, troll-feeding was flooding the comments. Verifiably, meta-discussion is flooding the comments. Keep it simple stupid!

[Xachariah]

Test

Edit: Evidently karma loss only applies to downvoted comments, and not downvoted threads.

[radical_negative_one]

Thanks Xachariah, this question had occurred to me also, it’s nice to see that someone else already took the risk.

[deleted]

[gwern]

According to whom? It seems trivial to come up with nerds who enjoy ‘high culture’, however one might term it; the very title of Goedel, Escher, Bach is an example and that is surely a nerdish work.

[CarlShulman]

Test

[Will_Newsome]

Yo dawg we heard you like signaling so we put some signaling in your signaling so you can make noise while you make noise.

[atorm]

Will Newsome, stop being so funny and charming while I’m trying to disagree with you.

[Will_Newsome]

Sorry but I have a girlfriend.

[atorm]

Out of curiosity, was it you downvoting me, or someone annoyed at me encouraging all the noise you make in our signal? Or someone who just doesn’t find you funny?

[Will_Newsome]

I never downvote.

Love your enemies, upvote them that downvote you, reply in good faith to them that reply with stupid retorts to you, and ironically pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your trollish Father which is meta: for he maketh his sun to rise on the gay and on the meta and sendeth trolling on the just and on the unjust.

[atorm]

What is this I don’t even.

[Will_Newsome]

My girlfriend was partially responsible for that comment.

[atorm]

She’s not into all the polyamory going on around here?

[Will_Newsome]

Honestly, she thinks polyamory among nerds who don’t know the subtleties of more complex relationships and the possibilities thereof is somewhat contemptible; honestly, I agree with her. This is a nontrivial part of what disgusts me about LessWrong and its terrible excuse for a culture.

I like to make things explicit sometimes.

[common_law]

I like to make things explicit sometimes.

Although rarely.

For example, I wish you’d be more explicit about your disillusionment with LW culture. A few months ago, you were a loyal oppositionist, advising LW on how it can get bigger, while cheering Yudkowsky when he autocratically manipulated the placement of discussion items.

Remember? You advocated for contrarianism; I (or an alter) advocated for dissent. And now, you’ve become the dissent I advocated if not in content at least in form.

[Will_Newsome]

It might be better to contribute to the fall οf that which is already wavering and belongs to yesterday’s world than to try to prop it up and prolong its existence artificially.

[...]

Hegel rightly wrote that the epochs οf material well-being are blank pages in the history book, and Toynbee has shown that the challenge to mankind οf environmentally and spiritually harsh and problematic conditions is often the incentive that awakens the creative energies οf civilization. In some cases, it is not paradoxical to say that the man οf good will should try to make life difficult for his neighbor! It is a commonplace that all the higher virtues attenuate and atrophy under easy conditions, when man is not forced to prove himself in some way; and in the final analysis it does not matter in such situations if a good number fall away and are lost through natural selection.

— Julius Evola, Ride the Tiger

[common_law]

If I can try to get you to be more specific—was it perhaps something you recently learned about LW “culture”? Such as was contained in a recently published expose?

I was turned off too.

[Will_Newsome]

I was a Visiting Fellow at SingInst for about two years—I know way more about it than can be found in that article. The reason for the change in my strategies is simply that I learned that I can have most of my comments downvoted while still reaching a good fraction of the more interesting people on LessWrong. It’s been a long time since I’ve cared about LessWrong as a community, I’m only here to interact with the interesting folk. LessWrong is still a hub for them. Even Nick Szabo’s been stopping by recently.

[[deleted]]

Having a gf totally seems like a good way to go to Hell. Going to Hell is a bad idea dude.

[atorm]

Is there someone just going along downvoting you and every reply to you, or is everything I’m saying horrible?

[Randaly]

I strongly suspect that it is the former; there is increasingly a community norm against replying to trolls.

[atorm]

I appreciate the info. When did Will_Newsome go from being the cheeky contrarian to a full-on troll in this community? I’m not saying he is or isn’t, but his karma indicates that at least at some point he was saying things people found useful.

[saturn]

Around June-July 2011.

(This comment was made possible by Wei Dai)

[Will_Newsome]

People often downvote things I say on principle, yeah. Presumably this also applies to people that seem as if they are “feeding” me, yeah. I rather doubt you’re saying anything bad on its own terms.

[atorm]

I think that the polyamorists might be setting themselves up for some unfortunate social or psychological effects in the long run, but I don’t think there’s anything contemptible about trying to make love work in whatever way makes the most sense to you.

[[deleted]]

Having a gf totally seems like a good way to go to Hell. Going to Hell is a bad idea dude.

[Will_Newsome]

I agree on both counts, but the alternative also seemed like a good way to go to Hell, so. It’s a tricky situation.

[[deleted]]

“But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.”