I’ve had a passing interest in LW, but about 95% of all discussions seem to revolve around a few pet issues (AI, fine-tuning ephemeral utilitarian approaches, etc.) rather than any serious application to real life in policy positions or practical morality. So I was happy to see a few threads about animal rights and the like. I am still surprised, though, that there isn’t a greater attempt to bring the LW approach to bear on problems that are relevant in a more quotidian fashion than the looming technological singularity.
As far as I can tell, the reason for this is that in practical matters, “politics is the mind killer” is the mind killer.
There’s already enough geek-libertarian atmosphere that those of us who aren’t really notice it. But yeah—as I said, I’m not actually sure it would be a good idea. But the shying away from practical application to that particular part of things people are actually interested in fixing in their daily lives is a noteworthy absence.
Your implied claim that quotidian thoughts are unworthy of attention is … look, if you want to convince people all of this is actually a good idea, then when someone asks “so, OK. What are the practical applications of reading a million words of philosophy and learning probability maths?”, answering “How dare you be so short-termist” strikes me as unlikely to work. I mean, I could be wrong …
It seems to be treated as a thought stopper. “Do not go beyond this point.” There are good reasons for it, but the behaviour looks just like shying away from a bad thought.
I assume that was the intention. I’m not actually convinced that it would improve the site for us to dive headfirst into politics … but it’s odd for the stuff discussed here not to be applied even somewhere else, or even in the discussion section, without a flurry of downvotes. There’s a strong social norm that even the slightest hint of political discussion is inherently bad and must be avoided.
An outside view of LessWrong:
As far as I can tell, the reason for this is that in practical matters, “politics is the mind killer” is the mind killer.
Is there an argument behind “quotidian” besides “I have a short mental time horizon and don’t like to think weird thoughts”?
Why would LessWrong be able to come to a consensus on political subjects? Who would care about such a consensus if it came about?
There’s already enough geek-libertarian atmosphere that those of us who aren’t really notice it. But yeah—as I said, I’m not actually sure it would be a good idea. But the shying away from practical application to that particular part of things people are actually interested in fixing in their daily lives is a noteworthy absence.
Your implied claim that quotidian thoughts are unworthy of attention is … look, if you want to convince people all of this is actually a good idea, then when someone asks “so, OK. What are the practical applications of reading a million words of philosophy and learning probability maths?”, answering “How dare you be so short-termist” strikes me as unlikely to work. I mean, I could be wrong …
If it is not too much trouble, could you explain further what you mean by that?
It seems to be treated as a thought stopper. “Do not go beyond this point.” There are good reasons for it, but the behaviour looks just like shying away from a bad thought.
The thoughts are there, they’re just not expressed on this particular site.
I always assumed it was more a discussion-stopper, meant to keep people polite and quiet. However, your interpretation is probably better.
I assume that was the intention. I’m not actually convinced that it would improve the site for us to dive headfirst into politics … but it’s odd for the stuff discussed here not to be applied even somewhere else, or even in the discussion section, without a flurry of downvotes. There’s a strong social norm that even the slightest hint of political discussion is inherently bad and must be avoided.
It should be noted that RationalWiki is not a website known to be, let us say, lacking in killed minds.
It is a very silly place.
I agree