It could be evidence that the questioner isn’t worth engaging, because the conversation is unlikely to be productive. The questioner might have significantly motivated cognition or have written the bottom line.
On the contrary, adversarial questioners are often highly productive. I’ve already incited one of the best comments you’ve seen on LessWrong, haven’t I?
Yes, my cognition is significantly motivated along these lines. Doesn’t Hitler deserve some of the credit for the rapid development of computers and nuclear bombs? Perhaps I or someone like me will play a similar role in the development of AI?
On the contrary, adversarial questioners are often highly productive. I’ve already incited one of the best comments you’ve seen on LessWrong, haven’t I?
Don’t take too much credit. Steve_Rayhawk generated the comment by actively trying to help. But if his goal was to engage you in thoughtful and productive discussion, he probably failed, and it was probably a waste of his time to try. There happened to be this positive externality of an excellent comment—but that’s the kind of thing that’s generated as a result of doing your best to understand a complex issue, not adversarially mucking up the conversation about it.
Yes, my cognition is significantly motivated along these lines. Doesn’t Hitler deserve some of the credit for the rapid development of computers and nuclear bombs? Perhaps I or someone like me will play a similar role in the development of AI?
Yup. And there’s an established pattern on Less Wrong of consistently downvoted users that just get more and more trolly over time and end up getting banned, but waste a lot of everyone’s time until it happens. Good thing AlphaOmega already Godwin’d themselves.
Whether the individual in question has other motivations doesn’t by itself make the questions raised any less valid.
It could be evidence that the questioner isn’t worth engaging, because the conversation is unlikely to be productive. The questioner might have significantly motivated cognition or have written the bottom line.
On the contrary, adversarial questioners are often highly productive. I’ve already incited one of the best comments you’ve seen on LessWrong, haven’t I?
Yes, my cognition is significantly motivated along these lines. Doesn’t Hitler deserve some of the credit for the rapid development of computers and nuclear bombs? Perhaps I or someone like me will play a similar role in the development of AI?
Don’t take too much credit. Steve_Rayhawk generated the comment by actively trying to help. But if his goal was to engage you in thoughtful and productive discussion, he probably failed, and it was probably a waste of his time to try. There happened to be this positive externality of an excellent comment—but that’s the kind of thing that’s generated as a result of doing your best to understand a complex issue, not adversarially mucking up the conversation about it.
Somehow I doubt that’s the true cause of your behavior, but I’d be delighted to find out that I’m wrong.
Yup. And there’s an established pattern on Less Wrong of consistently downvoted users that just get more and more trolly over time and end up getting banned, but waste a lot of everyone’s time until it happens. Good thing AlphaOmega already Godwin’d themselves.