Sure, if you’re running in debate mode and thinking in terms of ‘sides’ or ‘us versus them’ and trying to ‘win’, then that might be something to do. Solution: don’t do that in the first place.
Indeed, a valuable point. So what’s up with the score keeping system of LW then. It encourages thinking in terms of sides and competition. −1, not my side, +1 my side. −1 lost, +1 won.
Don’t worry, everything you believe is almost certainly wrong—don’t expect to find yourself in the 95% correct state any time soon. We’re running on corrupted hardware in the first place, and nowhere near the end of science. We can reduce hardly any of our high-level concepts to their physical working parts.
lol. Fair enough. I would place the 95% not on some unknown scale of what is absolutely true—that science doesn’t yet know, but instead on the relative scale of what science currently knows. Does that make a difference to your point?
First, fix those too.
Yep, tough to become self less, yet still place enough value upon oneself to not be a door mat. Rudyard Kiplings “If” shows a pathway.
So what’s up with the score keeping system of LW then. It encourages thinking in terms of sides and competition. −1, not my side, +1 my side. −1 lost, +1 won.
Karma allows users to easily aggregate the community opinion of their comments, and allows busy users to prioritize which comments to read. I try to make more posts like my highly upvoted posts, and less posts like my highly downvoted posts. It is common to see discussions where both users are upvoted, or discussions where both users are downvoted. When there’s a large karma split between users, that’s a message from the community that the users are using different modes of discussion, and one is strongly preferred to the other.
Both positive and negative options are necessary so that posts which are loved by half of the users and hated by the other half of the users have a neutral score, rather than a high score. Similarly, posts which are disliked by many users should be different from posts that everyone is indifferent to.
that are a thousand years ahead of western science.
What was the motivation behind this addition? Was it positive?
that are a thousand years ahead of western science.
What was the motivation behind this addition? Was it positive?
The motivation was to plant a seed… motivated by the +2 on my comment.
In my experience debiasing others who have strongly held opinions is far more effort than it’s worth, a better road seems to be to facilitate them debiasing themselves. Plant the seed and move on, coming back to assess and perhaps water it later on. I don’t try to cut down their tree… as it were.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/7ep/practical_debiasing/5ah1?context=1#5ah1
It is not uncommon to see scientists who have studied Eastern philosophy. Thus, how could Eastern philsophy be a thousand years ahead of science, when it is part of science?
Indeed, a valuable point. So what’s up with the score keeping system of LW then. It encourages thinking in terms of sides and competition. −1, not my side, +1 my side. −1 lost, +1 won.
It’s a hurdle to get past thinking of it in that way for some people, to be sure. It seems a worthwhile cost though, for an easy way to efficiently express approval/disapproval of a comment, combined with automatic hiding of really bad comments from casual readers.
While some people use them that way, voting should not generally be used to mean “I agree” or “I disagree”. The preferred interpretation is “I would like to see [more/fewer] comments like this one” (which may yet include agreement/disagreement, but they should be minor factors as compared to quality).
Indeed, a valuable point. So what’s up with the score keeping system of LW then. It encourages thinking in terms of sides and competition. −1, not my side, +1 my side. −1 lost, +1 won.
lol. Fair enough. I would place the 95% not on some unknown scale of what is absolutely true—that science doesn’t yet know, but instead on the relative scale of what science currently knows. Does that make a difference to your point?
Yep, tough to become self less, yet still place enough value upon oneself to not be a door mat. Rudyard Kiplings “If” shows a pathway.
Eastern philosophy also has approaches—that are a thousand years ahead of western science.
Karma allows users to easily aggregate the community opinion of their comments, and allows busy users to prioritize which comments to read. I try to make more posts like my highly upvoted posts, and less posts like my highly downvoted posts. It is common to see discussions where both users are upvoted, or discussions where both users are downvoted. When there’s a large karma split between users, that’s a message from the community that the users are using different modes of discussion, and one is strongly preferred to the other.
Both positive and negative options are necessary so that posts which are loved by half of the users and hated by the other half of the users have a neutral score, rather than a high score. Similarly, posts which are disliked by many users should be different from posts that everyone is indifferent to.
What was the motivation behind this addition? Was it positive?
The motivation was to plant a seed… motivated by the +2 on my comment.
But why that seed in this conversation?
It is not uncommon to see scientists who have studied Eastern philosophy. Thus, how could Eastern philsophy be a thousand years ahead of science, when it is part of science?
To assist in debiasing the ageism that was being expressed in the conversation.
Yes. The difference in perspective probably explains why Eliezer thought Less Wrong was a good name, whereas you do not. Do not compare yourself to others; “The best physicist in ancient Greece could not calculate the path of a falling apple.”
It’s a hurdle to get past thinking of it in that way for some people, to be sure. It seems a worthwhile cost though, for an easy way to efficiently express approval/disapproval of a comment, combined with automatic hiding of really bad comments from casual readers.
While some people use them that way, voting should not generally be used to mean “I agree” or “I disagree”. The preferred interpretation is “I would like to see [more/fewer] comments like this one” (which may yet include agreement/disagreement, but they should be minor factors as compared to quality).