Folks, this is what “things you can’t say” looks like. This is what a real social taboo looks like.
Notice how different the community response is to this, versus to some of the things that are claimed by their proponents to be “things you can’t say” but which are actually merely explicit statements of common beliefs in the cultural mainstream.
When someone triggers a social taboo, the response isn’t so much “I will argue against this person!” — not even in the “someone is wrong on the Internet!” fashion. That’s just disagreement (sometimes ideological or partisan disagreement), not taboo.
When someone triggers a social taboo, the response is more to try to stifle or exclude it quickly. This sometimes ends in trying to pretend that it never happened.
(I am not asserting that the taboo response is right or wrong on this subject. I am pointing out that it is different.)
While I did not upvote the original post itself, I’ll note here my disagreement with all the comments taking issue with the post for being “off topic.” We entertain topics related only very tangentially to rationality on a regular basis, and the issue is not that this subject is off topic beyond our usual tolerances, it’s that practically any community will get the screaming heebie jeebies the moment it’s raised. This is one of our existing taboos which is still strong enough for people to be hit by social splatter damage just by being near it and not protesting.
The point is, if it were on topic, taking the status hit of exploring the subject matter might be justifiable. As it stands now its value is completely negative to the community.
I bet the exact same argument if it was in a open thread comment would have been upvoted and would on net be considered a gain.
Claims like this when well argued are welcomed even outside threads for taboo topics (and even if they where only welcomed there that still leaves room for discussion). I recall the topic being discussed on the unofficial IRC channel and other comments.
Pedophilia is a legitimate sexual orientation, even if it expressing it IRL is bad (which it is not). Child porn should not be suppressed (tho some of it is documentation of crime and should be investigated).
Thanks, I think I had missed or forgotten that. That thread you linked seems awesome.
It’s hard for me to believe the difference was just that he didn’t post in the open thread. He seems monomaniacal with his cause, and planned to post more of the same. He hasn’t discussed any other topic here, even introduced himself as a pedophile in the introduction thread.
Can you think of any other ways he could have been better received?
It’s hard for me to believe the difference was just that he didn’t post in the open thread.
Well, it is a huge difference. An article has a name, it can be linked independently, and it appears on a new web page with the logo of LessWrong above it. The only context it has is “this is the article published on LessWrong”.
A comment is just a comment. Yeah, in LW software it can also be linked separately, but at least the web page starts with saying that this is just one article and you can click here to see the whole context. And that specific article says that this is the place for controversial topics, so it’s like any comment posted there is automatically labeled as controversial. (It’s like coming with a monster costume on Halloween; everyone knows it’s a monster constume for Halloween.)
Imagine how newspaper websites look like, because many people have more experience reading them. The articles are written by editors; the newspaper owner is responsible for them. The comments are written by anyone, and it is obvious they don’t represent the opinion of the newspaper owner. Criticizing a newspaper for the article they published is reasonable, but people usually don’t criticize the newspaper for a random comment below it’s article, because they understand the comment was made by someone else. -- LessWrong is not like this, but if you send a hyperlink to people used to deal with newspapers and one-person blogs, they may have similar assumptions.
He seems monomaniacal with his cause, and planned to post more of the same.
Because he has no good place to post them elsewhere and expect a reasonable discussion. :(
Unfortunately this just makes the whole things worse. If LW becomes the rare place where this topic is treated reasonably, we can expect dozens of new members coming to express the same feelings here. That’s the horrible effect that if some kind of people are unwelcome at most places, any place that becomes tolerant to them faces a huge risk to become crowded by them disproportionately.
Because he has no good place to post them elsewhere and expect a reasonable discussion. :(
Which suggests there’s a market for a web forum whose policy is that controversial topics are welcomed and discussion of those topics must be reasonable no matter how reprehensible one considers the position one is discussing, and the moderators assiduously ban/delete violations of that policy.
As you say, LW is not that forum, and does not wish to be.
Incidentally, I would be astonished if such forums didn’t exist already. Were I looking for one, I would probably ask around on someplace like FetLife.
Admittedly, there are some mainstream-controversial topics that get discussed in that way here, with that sort of social norm, and I expect that in some communities the opinion of LW is tainted by those discussions in the same way you discuss. But the consensus opinion of LW seems to be that the opinions of those communities don’t really matter very much.
there are some mainstream-controversial topics that get discussed in that way here, with that sort of social norm, and I expect that in some communities the opinion of LW is tainted by those discussions in the same way you discuss
One difference is a different degree of taboo. Another one, I suspect more important, was the timing. The controversial topics didn’t start by someone posting a full article out of the blue. They first appeared as comments in other articles, somewhat related to their topics. Only later someone would write an article about it. And at least I didn’t have an impression that someone is on LW only to talk about the taboo topics.
In other words, if you want to talk about controversial topics, don’t start by shocking everyone. (Unless it’s a “door in the face” technique, when the shocking article gets heavily downvoted, but then people feel kinda guilty and become more tolerant in the discussion.)
Well, it is a huge difference. An article has a name, it can be linked independently, and it appears on a new web page with the logo of LessWrong above it. The only context it has is “this is the article published on LessWrong”.
You convinced me. Just vividly imagining this caused an availability bias.
It’s like coming with a monster costume on Halloween; everyone knows it’s a monster constume for Halloween.)
That’s a great analogy. I’m going to steal it!
Unfortunately this just makes the whole things worse. If LW becomes the rare place where this topic is treated reasonably, we can expect dozens of new members coming to express the same feelings here.
This is a good point, and wouldn’t be limited to just pedophiles. Permitting all taboos in the name of rationality is just going to lead to more taboos being discussed. Good luck selling rationality to people after that. Then again, if rationality simply doesn’t appeal to regular citizens, perhaps attracting controversy would be a great marketing strategy ;)
A comment is just a comment. Yeah, in LW software it can also be linked separately, but at least the web page starts with saying that this is just one article and you can click here to see the whole context.
Not to mention that it is, in my experience, a huge pain to locate any individual comment via site search unless they’re either highly upvoted or found on some of the most trafficked pages.
Well, it is, and it isn’t. If I were trying to find these discussions, I would google site:http://lesswrong.com “child porn” pedophilia or something of the sort, and it would work all right. But yes, one still has to look around a little; it isn’t the same as a link to an article.
Well, when I’ve attempted that method while trying to track down old comments on the site, I’ve often found that the comments I’m looking for do not come up as results, even when a sufficiently thorough search through the archives of the site is sufficient to find them, but if the keywords match to few enough other results, it might be more effective.
I see I had a more constrained idea of selfishness in mind than you did. I’m not interested in arguing semantics (or maybe I am?). Removed the part about selfishness. It wasn’t the point anyways.
ETA: Here’s what I think is selfish: pushing your goals without concern for others. Perhaps you assumed a more general interpretation where looking for pleasure and avoiding pain is selfish. In that case, you’ve made the word useless, because it applies to everyone.
And, relatedly, is there a difference between pushing my goals without concern for others, and pushing my goals in situations where I expect others to be harmed by my doing so?
I don’t think the word selfish ever has had a positive connotation, and rarely a neutral one. I used to argue about word definitions, but then I realized it’s less frustrating to use words the way people usually do. I think self-interest is a similar word usually used in a more neutral manner.
I think a good rule of thumb is to assume people don’t mean to use words in ways that describe everything or nothing in the reference class i.e. “everyone is selfish and nobody is an altruist”, “no love is unconditional”. Don’t think people are as stupid as their language is.
pushing my goals in situations where I expect others to be harmed by my doing so?
I think people use stronger words for this, but selfish is used too. Evil comes to mind.
Both. Depends on the extent of harm, obviously. I also don’t mean to imply it’s the only way people use the word evil. I steelmanned your question a bit. I assume you mean net harm, not minor collateral damage.
The norms here are probably a bit different, and adapting to the local language is desirable.
Except, of course, if they go against my inclusive interests in any way that my social influence can hope to impact. In that case it is Wrong, Other-Tribalish, sinister, naive, uncouth, dirty and generally low status.
I recall making very similar arguments on pedophilia and generally being up voted. I think this is best explained by there being a stricter standard of avoiding taboo topics for main compared to the comment section.
I recall other controversial subjects such as the effectiveness of terrorism to stop Moore’s law (was upvoted) and racial differences in intelligence (was downvoted) in main articles. And an article where lukeprog basically took any claim of the PUAs he found plausible and could find academic backing for and presented it divorced from the subculture, that was supposed to be the beginning of a series, but was probably seen as not desirable for the site and discontinued (despite it being upvoted).
I have made arguments about as controversial as the ones in your linked article in comments on pedophilia and they have generally been well received. The same is true of my arguments in favor of there being a hereditary component to the measured racial differences in intelligence. Alas I haven’t commented on terrorism.
“this is ok to discuss, however opening it as a topic in itself on main makes the site looks bad and may attract the wrong kinds of attention”.
The lesson I think really is to bring these kinds of topics up when they are one relevant example among several. If one wants them discussed as a standalone topics, open threads seem best or discussion section topics at most (hey we need something there besides meetup threads anyway).
I think this is best explained by there being a stricter standard of avoiding taboo topics for main compared to the comment section.
The post wasn’t downvoted at first actually although it was commented on, and I didn’t downvote it, but it was sent to oblivion after the first high status commenters arrived saying he was political, low status, discussing a taboo topic to disgrace LW on purpose, a troll.
I have made arguments about as controversial as the ones in your linked article in comments on pedophilia and they have generally been well received. The same is true of my arguments in favor of there being a hereditary component to the measured racial differences in intelligence.
Folks, this is what “things you can’t say” looks like. This is what a real social taboo looks like.
It looks to me more like what happens when someone uses “taboo” as a Power Word: Stun on a group of people with an excessive identity as rationalists. It’s this, especially item #1, translated to discussion forums.
I notice that JoshElders original posting has gone. Good.
I’ve said pretty forthrightly that I believe he’s just a troll, and I stand by that. But suppose I take him at his word. What is to be said? Sucks to be him, yay for not kiddle-fiddling (but he doesn’t get any prize for that), and—what? Certainly, there are discussions to be had about laws and mores around age, consent, and pornography. There are also places to have these discussions. LessWrong is not one of them.
LessWrong has a specific focus, without which it becomes merely MoreWrong and AveragelyWrong imagining they’re LessWrong because they’re posting on a site called LessWrong and have learned how to dress up as pretend rationalists. Nothing is made relevant to LessWrong just by being posted here. Framing discussions of whether the latest irrelevance should be here at all in terms of “exclusion”, “taboo” and “open-minded” is somewhere between clueless and Dark Arts.
I’ve said pretty forthrightly that I believe he’s just a troll, and I stand by that.
I want to say publicly that after initial disbelief (motivated by the #1 Geek Social Fallacy), I have updated towards Richard’s judgement of the situation. If you read carefully the comments, they are optimized for drawing attention to their author and prolonging the debate infinitely.
I have made the mistake of feeding the troll, thereby decreasing the quality of this website. It’s even more embarassing to realize that it is a mistake most readers avoided. I have learned my lesson, and hopefully it will make me stronger in future internet debates.
The substantive posts I brought up are about matters of fact under conditions of great uncertainty—for instance, drawing conclusions about a largely invisible group. I brought up the ideas of “civil rights”, “taboo”, etc. only in response to people saying it shouldn’t be discussed here—that wasn’t my idea. And it looks like the predominant view among the regulars is that it isn’t irrelevant to the mission of rationality, it isn’t off topic, and that I am making cogent arguments. It’s to be downplayed because it’s too hot to handle, due to the expected reactions (quite possibly very much at odds with rationality) of the general reading public. I think there’s considerable benefit on being clear about that.
I brought up the ideas of “civil rights”, “taboo”, etc. only in response to people saying it shouldn’t be discussed here—that wasn’t my idea.
It was your idea to bring up “civil rights” as a response to “this does not belong here”. An idea as old as the Internet.
It’s to be downplayed because it’s too hot to handle, due to the expected reactions (quite possibly very much at odds with rationality) of the general reading public. I think there’s considerable benefit on being clear about that.
I have just reread this entire thread, from which it appears to me that this has been clear to all from the start. I agree that there would be considerable benefit from you, also, being clear about that.
Well, if any of those 5 or more people who upvoted this think it’s interesting enough to kick it up the chain rather than erasing the issue, you’ll have to be the ones to do it. I couldn’t even if I wanted to with my current karma ranking, and I don’t really have the standing to, being a new member and being a member of the taboo group.
The community could end up deciding that it is a taboo topic, that’s the way it is, end of story. Or perhaps there is fear that it could create a damaging controversy that would hurt the community? Or various other things that I can’t predict.
But something feels wrong with a conclusion that “A public discussion about whether it’s OK to talk about celibate pedophilia is taboo”.
I’d rather it be erased. The potential for social ‘splash damage’ to LW is high, and the gain is very low (or possibly negative.) Further, I believe that your agenda is to push this topic to your preferred conclusion, not to use it as an example which can aid in the core mission of LW.
But something feels wrong with a conclusion that “A public discussion about whether it’s OK to talk about celibate pedophilia is taboo”.
First, this is kind of misleading. The question is not whether it’s “OK to talk about celibate pedophilia”, but rather whether LessWrong is the proper place for this discussion. I am okay with this topic, I just think it would be a huge PR damage for LessWrong to have it here.
As an analogy, I have absolutely no problem with celibate pedophiles meeting in person and discussing their problems. But if you asked me whether you could organize this meetup at my home, I would certainly say no. It’s not because I want to take away your right of free speech or whatever. I just don’t want to be publicly associated with this cause.
Second, the discussion about whether we want to discuss celibate pedophilia here isn’t “taboo”. You just didn’t ask this question before posting the article. You didn’t ask it even in the top comment in this thread; at least not directly. The only sentence ending with question mark is: “Does anyone want to clarify the risk of harm to the site?”. Okay, I admit it is related. So, let’s break the taboo and ask openly here:
Dear readers of LessWrong, do you want to have celibate pedophilia discussions on LessWrong, and how specifically?
[pollid:560]
Third, I think the votes on the article and comments already express the opinions of the community.
I am interested in perceptions of the damage expected to be caused to LW from discussion of this topic and wonder if people can be more precise in their thinking about this. Here are some other scenarios:
If some established members discussed pedophilia and their opinions were within the commonly accepted range of views on the topic, would that reflect poorly on LW? For instance, suppose there was a debate where one pole of opinion was the status quo, and others were that child sex abusers should never be released from prison, or that execution would be an inappropriate punishment.
If some established community members who swore they were not pedophiles held a discussion where they expressed views similar to what I have been presenting, would that be damaging to the community? I gather people have now and then questioned whether adult-child sexual activity always causes harm.
In the above cases, would tagging posts “pedophilia” or “childsexabuse” cause damage?
Suppose a member made posts on ordinary LW topics that were of high quality, but noted now and then that they were a celibate pedophile and would like to remind people that such people are among us all the time, would that cause damage?
Typically in a community the people who care about a subject discuss it and those who don’t do not. If a poll revealed that 90% of the community did not want the topic discussed but a small group kept discussing it, would that insulate the community from damage to any extent?
Typically in a community the people who care about a subject discuss it and those who don’t do not. If a poll revealed that 90% of the community did not want the topic discussed but a small group kept discussing it, would that insulate the community from damage to any extent?
To an extent, but not enough to matter. The topic of child porn is one of the most socially toxic subjects out there, and even being peripherally associated with it can be a life-ending event. Careers have been destroyed, men have been unmade, and Bad Stuff Has Happened in the name of this topic. It does not have to make sense; it does not matter why. What matters is that it is so.
If for no other reason than self defense, I feel these discussions should be blackholed and discouraged with prejudice. We are a rationalist forum, with a specific goal, and the very presence of this topic risks our work. Again, it does not matter that it is unfair, it does not matter that it does not make sense: what matters is that it risks our work, in a nontrivial way.
Your goal is to discuss these topics. Our goal is to spread rationality. These two goals are in conflict for reasons beyond the control of either party, reasons which may or may not make sense but which nevertheless are powerful enough to unmake both of us.
I will not help you in your goal, as it conflicts with mine. I will encourage LW against helping you with your goal, as I feel it conflicts with and is damaging to theirs.
And finally, I recommend you push your agenda on a different forum. I would prefer you not return until you are willing to contribute positively to the core mission of LW—that core mission being the spread and improvement of rational thought processes in the general population. As it stands right now, I feel you have contributed net negative utility to the core mission of LW with your posts, and it disturbs me that you seem unable to see that or understand why.
It seems we have one key difference. Some of you believe that having this topic discussed in the open thread risks serious damage to LW because of the danger of a poor reputation. I am not convinced of this.
If it is not true, then I don’t think anyone has suggested any other reason for harm. If this is true, then my participation may have been harmful, though the marginal harm from a little more discussion seems very small.
So far I made one post in the discussion thread suggesting some pedophiles do not molest children. Following advice there, I made my next post in the open thread, which is this current post. I made one more post in the open thread titled “Assertion: Child porn availability does not increase child sex abuse”. I have responded to comments in all of these threads. My current plan, in response to community concerns, is to reply in these threads but not open any new ones. (I note that because of my low karma, I can’t see the results of the poll, a side effect of the entirely reasonably restriction that I can’t vote in it.)
The topic of child porn is one of the most socially toxic subjects out there, and even being peripherally associated with it can be a life-ending event. Careers have been destroyed, men have been unmade, and Bad Stuff Has Happened in the name of this topic.
For possession this is most assuredly so. Conceivably it’s so for arguing in favor of looser restrictions on it. It’s hard for me to believe that it is so for arguing against such changes or for being a contributor on the same forum where it is discussed. If anyone has such cases, I’d love to hear about them—by private message is fine.
Your goal is to discuss these topics.
I have raised two specific cases where facts aren’t clear and there are issues of different kinds of evidence to weigh in reaching a factual determination under conditions of uncertainty. Others have characterized this as my dressing up my concern for the topic in the guise of rationality. I disagree, and suggest that the reason may be mind-killer reactions—but on your side only. It’s hard to tell if they are representative opinions. There are many, many other ways I could have discussed this topic not related to rationality, and I didn’t, and wouldn’t.
Our goal is to spread rationality.
It would seem that your goal would be advanced by seeing how rationality considerations apply to any area of human endeavor, especially where they have not been widely discussed before. If rationality considerations could apply to the debate on incarceration policies for drug offenders, for instance, it would advance the goals of LW to discuss them. If this isn’t true for celibate pedophilia, it is only because it is a taboo topic. That may be a sufficient reason, but I think it’s worth being clear about that.
The results of the poll, at this moment… rot-13′d to prevent spoilers...
V cersre n frdhrapr bs negvpyrf—mreb; mreb creprag V cersre bar negvpyr bayl—bar; frira creprag V cersre ab negvpyrf, bayl n qvfphffvba va bcra guernq—svir; guveglfvk creprag V cersre abg gb qvfphff guvf gbcvp ng nyy—svir; guveglfvk creprag Fbzrguvat ryfr (cyrnfr rkcynva va n pbzzrag) - mreb; mreb creprag V ershfr gb ibgr ba guvf gnobb gbcvp, whfg fubj zr gur erfhygf—guerr; gjraglbar creprag
That’s very interesting. At what point can one start talking about implications of a poll without it being a spoiler?
I don’t know the actual reasons why my original Discussion post “Assertion: a large proportion of pedophiles are celibate” was deleted—I figure the community has its methods of operation and assume it was all done according to regulations. I am aware of reasons that were given in this thread for wanting it removed—though I don’t know the relationship of those reasons to why it was actually removed.
Survey results suggest considerable support in the community for discussing the topic in the Open Thread. A reasonable person might think it would be appropriate to repost that topic in the Open thread (I have the text of my original post). Such a person would also want to make sure that would not be considered hostile behavior, in the absence of knowing the actual reasons it was removed. I also don’t know what is supposed to happen here when half a community thinks something shouldn’t be discussed and the other half is OK with it.
At what point can one start talking about implications of a poll without it being a spoiler?
I don’t know about any specific rule. The general idea is that people should see the poll first (so that they are not influenced how to vote), but I guess three days later it’s fair game.
I don’t know the actual reasons why my original Discussion post (...) was deleted
Voting means deciding whether members want the article or don’t want the article. Your article was extremely downvoted. Like, one of the most downvoted articles ever; probably in the bottom 2%. So if there was any obvious community consensus about removing an article, it was about this one.
Meta: I think it would be more proper to become familiar with norms of a community first, and publish articles later. Comments like this seem to provide further evidence that you are actually not interested in LessWrong per se, just see it as a platform for your topic.
Survey results suggest considerable support in the community for discussing the topic in the Open Thread.
If you interpret “half of members don’t want to disuss it at all, and the other half prefers keeping it in the open thread only” as a considerable support… well, I guess you were going to interpret almost any result positively.
A reasonable person might think it would be appropriate to repost that topic in the Open thread (I have the text of my original post).
I guess you are going to do it anyway; just let me say there is nothing “reasonable” about reposting a text that got karma below −20.
I also don’t know what is supposed to happen here when half a community thinks something shouldn’t be discussed and the other half is OK with it.
Well, if people have a strong desire to discuss something, they will. And each comment is upvoted or downvoted on its merits. Knowing that a large part of community does not want some topic either makes people comment less on it, or become extra careful when writing about it.
At this point I am no longer interested even in meta-discussions of this topic. Tapping out.
You raise interesting points. One could hypothesize that the downvoting of the original article was due to its placement in the prominent Discussion thread, and seeing it in the open thread people would have not objected to it there. It seems an unlikely interpretation of the bulk of the votes, I agree. The serious downvoting of the original article does weigh heavily on this.
I think those who answered the poll were probably a biased sample in a serious way. Who read it? People who were interested in discussing this topic, and people who were not AND who were still motivated enough to be here to continue arguing for not discussing it. Those who didn’t want it discussed were probably underrerepresented.
How my reputation went from −13 to −40 overnight is intriguing. It had been quite stable, and I made a few posts yesterday that were not especially controversial. I speculate that the tapped-out Viliam-Bur in his review of my posts downvoted them all. I guess that’s fine, but maybe considered at a meta level gives one individual more power than is ideal? It is of course just speculation. I’m interested in alternative hypotheses.
Folks, this is what “things you can’t say” looks like. This is what a real social taboo looks like.
Notice how different the community response is to this, versus to some of the things that are claimed by their proponents to be “things you can’t say” but which are actually merely explicit statements of common beliefs in the cultural mainstream.
When someone triggers a social taboo, the response isn’t so much “I will argue against this person!” — not even in the “someone is wrong on the Internet!” fashion. That’s just disagreement (sometimes ideological or partisan disagreement), not taboo.
When someone triggers a social taboo, the response is more to try to stifle or exclude it quickly. This sometimes ends in trying to pretend that it never happened.
(I am not asserting that the taboo response is right or wrong on this subject. I am pointing out that it is different.)
While I did not upvote the original post itself, I’ll note here my disagreement with all the comments taking issue with the post for being “off topic.” We entertain topics related only very tangentially to rationality on a regular basis, and the issue is not that this subject is off topic beyond our usual tolerances, it’s that practically any community will get the screaming heebie jeebies the moment it’s raised. This is one of our existing taboos which is still strong enough for people to be hit by social splatter damage just by being near it and not protesting.
The point is, if it were on topic, taking the status hit of exploring the subject matter might be justifiable. As it stands now its value is completely negative to the community.
I bet the exact same argument if it was in a open thread comment would have been upvoted and would on net be considered a gain.
Claims like this when well argued are welcomed even outside threads for taboo topics (and even if they where only welcomed there that still leaves room for discussion). I recall the topic being discussed on the unofficial IRC channel and other comments.
Thanks, I think I had missed or forgotten that. That thread you linked seems awesome.
It’s hard for me to believe the difference was just that he didn’t post in the open thread. He seems monomaniacal with his cause, and planned to post more of the same. He hasn’t discussed any other topic here, even introduced himself as a pedophile in the introduction thread.
Can you think of any other ways he could have been better received?
Well, it is a huge difference. An article has a name, it can be linked independently, and it appears on a new web page with the logo of LessWrong above it. The only context it has is “this is the article published on LessWrong”.
A comment is just a comment. Yeah, in LW software it can also be linked separately, but at least the web page starts with saying that this is just one article and you can click here to see the whole context. And that specific article says that this is the place for controversial topics, so it’s like any comment posted there is automatically labeled as controversial. (It’s like coming with a monster costume on Halloween; everyone knows it’s a monster constume for Halloween.)
Imagine how newspaper websites look like, because many people have more experience reading them. The articles are written by editors; the newspaper owner is responsible for them. The comments are written by anyone, and it is obvious they don’t represent the opinion of the newspaper owner. Criticizing a newspaper for the article they published is reasonable, but people usually don’t criticize the newspaper for a random comment below it’s article, because they understand the comment was made by someone else. -- LessWrong is not like this, but if you send a hyperlink to people used to deal with newspapers and one-person blogs, they may have similar assumptions.
Because he has no good place to post them elsewhere and expect a reasonable discussion. :(
Unfortunately this just makes the whole things worse. If LW becomes the rare place where this topic is treated reasonably, we can expect dozens of new members coming to express the same feelings here. That’s the horrible effect that if some kind of people are unwelcome at most places, any place that becomes tolerant to them faces a huge risk to become crowded by them disproportionately.
Which suggests there’s a market for a web forum whose policy is that controversial topics are welcomed and discussion of those topics must be reasonable no matter how reprehensible one considers the position one is discussing, and the moderators assiduously ban/delete violations of that policy.
As you say, LW is not that forum, and does not wish to be.
Incidentally, I would be astonished if such forums didn’t exist already. Were I looking for one, I would probably ask around on someplace like FetLife.
Admittedly, there are some mainstream-controversial topics that get discussed in that way here, with that sort of social norm, and I expect that in some communities the opinion of LW is tainted by those discussions in the same way you discuss. But the consensus opinion of LW seems to be that the opinions of those communities don’t really matter very much.
One difference is a different degree of taboo. Another one, I suspect more important, was the timing. The controversial topics didn’t start by someone posting a full article out of the blue. They first appeared as comments in other articles, somewhat related to their topics. Only later someone would write an article about it. And at least I didn’t have an impression that someone is on LW only to talk about the taboo topics.
In other words, if you want to talk about controversial topics, don’t start by shocking everyone. (Unless it’s a “door in the face” technique, when the shocking article gets heavily downvoted, but then people feel kinda guilty and become more tolerant in the discussion.)
Yes, those are two differences, agreed. My suspicion is that the importance ranks the other way, but you might be right.
Agreed, including the caveat and a few other caveats in the same vein.
You convinced me. Just vividly imagining this caused an availability bias.
That’s a great analogy. I’m going to steal it!
This is a good point, and wouldn’t be limited to just pedophiles. Permitting all taboos in the name of rationality is just going to lead to more taboos being discussed. Good luck selling rationality to people after that. Then again, if rationality simply doesn’t appeal to regular citizens, perhaps attracting controversy would be a great marketing strategy ;)
Not to mention that it is, in my experience, a huge pain to locate any individual comment via site search unless they’re either highly upvoted or found on some of the most trafficked pages.
Well, it is, and it isn’t. If I were trying to find these discussions, I would google site:http://lesswrong.com “child porn” pedophilia or something of the sort, and it would work all right. But yes, one still has to look around a little; it isn’t the same as a link to an article.
Well, when I’ve attempted that method while trying to track down old comments on the site, I’ve often found that the comments I’m looking for do not come up as results, even when a sufficiently thorough search through the archives of the site is sufficient to find them, but if the keywords match to few enough other results, it might be more effective.
There’s nothing wrong with selfish intent. Most of my intents are selfish.
I see I had a more constrained idea of selfishness in mind than you did. I’m not interested in arguing semantics (or maybe I am?). Removed the part about selfishness. It wasn’t the point anyways.
ETA: Here’s what I think is selfish: pushing your goals without concern for others. Perhaps you assumed a more general interpretation where looking for pleasure and avoiding pain is selfish. In that case, you’ve made the word useless, because it applies to everyone.
your definition of selfishness does not seem to apply here, as he seems to want to help everyone else in his own situation.
So he says. He belongs to the group he’s trying to help. He seems to have no concern for LWers. Was I correct about your definition?
Pretty much. I think the use of the word selfish as a pejorative is usually bad.
I used to think so too.
What changed your mind?
And, relatedly, is there a difference between pushing my goals without concern for others, and pushing my goals in situations where I expect others to be harmed by my doing so?
I don’t think the word selfish ever has had a positive connotation, and rarely a neutral one. I used to argue about word definitions, but then I realized it’s less frustrating to use words the way people usually do. I think self-interest is a similar word usually used in a more neutral manner.
I think a good rule of thumb is to assume people don’t mean to use words in ways that describe everything or nothing in the reference class i.e. “everyone is selfish and nobody is an altruist”, “no love is unconditional”. Don’t think people are as stupid as their language is.
I think people use stronger words for this, but selfish is used too. Evil comes to mind.
Agreed.
Do you mean to imply that you consider this evil, in addition to being selfish? Or do you just mean to make a statement about how people use words?
Both. Depends on the extent of harm, obviously. I also don’t mean to imply it’s the only way people use the word evil. I steelmanned your question a bit. I assume you mean net harm, not minor collateral damage.
The norms here are probably a bit different, and adapting to the local language is desirable.
Except, of course, if they go against my inclusive interests in any way that my social influence can hope to impact. In that case it is Wrong, Other-Tribalish, sinister, naive, uncouth, dirty and generally low status.
I recall making very similar arguments on pedophilia and generally being up voted. I think this is best explained by there being a stricter standard of avoiding taboo topics for main compared to the comment section.
I recall other controversial subjects such as the effectiveness of terrorism to stop Moore’s law (was upvoted) and racial differences in intelligence (was downvoted) in main articles. And an article where lukeprog basically took any claim of the PUAs he found plausible and could find academic backing for and presented it divorced from the subculture, that was supposed to be the beginning of a series, but was probably seen as not desirable for the site and discontinued (despite it being upvoted).
I have made arguments about as controversial as the ones in your linked article in comments on pedophilia and they have generally been well received. The same is true of my arguments in favor of there being a hereditary component to the measured racial differences in intelligence. Alas I haven’t commented on terrorism.
I think there is a general norm for things you can’t talk about:
The lesson I think really is to bring these kinds of topics up when they are one relevant example among several. If one wants them discussed as a standalone topics, open threads seem best or discussion section topics at most (hey we need something there besides meetup threads anyway).
The post wasn’t downvoted at first actually although it was commented on, and I didn’t downvote it, but it was sent to oblivion after the first high status commenters arrived saying he was political, low status, discussing a taboo topic to disgrace LW on purpose, a troll.
You have a reputation. I bet it helped.
It looks to me more like what happens when someone uses “taboo” as a Power Word: Stun on a group of people with an excessive identity as rationalists. It’s this, especially item #1, translated to discussion forums.
I notice that JoshElders original posting has gone. Good.
I’ve said pretty forthrightly that I believe he’s just a troll, and I stand by that. But suppose I take him at his word. What is to be said? Sucks to be him, yay for not kiddle-fiddling (but he doesn’t get any prize for that), and—what? Certainly, there are discussions to be had about laws and mores around age, consent, and pornography. There are also places to have these discussions. LessWrong is not one of them.
LessWrong has a specific focus, without which it becomes merely MoreWrong and AveragelyWrong imagining they’re LessWrong because they’re posting on a site called LessWrong and have learned how to dress up as pretend rationalists. Nothing is made relevant to LessWrong just by being posted here. Framing discussions of whether the latest irrelevance should be here at all in terms of “exclusion”, “taboo” and “open-minded” is somewhere between clueless and Dark Arts.
I want to say publicly that after initial disbelief (motivated by the #1 Geek Social Fallacy), I have updated towards Richard’s judgement of the situation. If you read carefully the comments, they are optimized for drawing attention to their author and prolonging the debate infinitely.
I have made the mistake of feeding the troll, thereby decreasing the quality of this website. It’s even more embarassing to realize that it is a mistake most readers avoided. I have learned my lesson, and hopefully it will make me stronger in future internet debates.
The substantive posts I brought up are about matters of fact under conditions of great uncertainty—for instance, drawing conclusions about a largely invisible group. I brought up the ideas of “civil rights”, “taboo”, etc. only in response to people saying it shouldn’t be discussed here—that wasn’t my idea. And it looks like the predominant view among the regulars is that it isn’t irrelevant to the mission of rationality, it isn’t off topic, and that I am making cogent arguments. It’s to be downplayed because it’s too hot to handle, due to the expected reactions (quite possibly very much at odds with rationality) of the general reading public. I think there’s considerable benefit on being clear about that.
It was your idea to bring up “civil rights” as a response to “this does not belong here”. An idea as old as the Internet.
I have just reread this entire thread, from which it appears to me that this has been clear to all from the start. I agree that there would be considerable benefit from you, also, being clear about that.
Well, if any of those 5 or more people who upvoted this think it’s interesting enough to kick it up the chain rather than erasing the issue, you’ll have to be the ones to do it. I couldn’t even if I wanted to with my current karma ranking, and I don’t really have the standing to, being a new member and being a member of the taboo group.
The community could end up deciding that it is a taboo topic, that’s the way it is, end of story. Or perhaps there is fear that it could create a damaging controversy that would hurt the community? Or various other things that I can’t predict.
But something feels wrong with a conclusion that “A public discussion about whether it’s OK to talk about celibate pedophilia is taboo”.
I’d rather it be erased. The potential for social ‘splash damage’ to LW is high, and the gain is very low (or possibly negative.) Further, I believe that your agenda is to push this topic to your preferred conclusion, not to use it as an example which can aid in the core mission of LW.
First, this is kind of misleading. The question is not whether it’s “OK to talk about celibate pedophilia”, but rather whether LessWrong is the proper place for this discussion. I am okay with this topic, I just think it would be a huge PR damage for LessWrong to have it here.
As an analogy, I have absolutely no problem with celibate pedophiles meeting in person and discussing their problems. But if you asked me whether you could organize this meetup at my home, I would certainly say no. It’s not because I want to take away your right of free speech or whatever. I just don’t want to be publicly associated with this cause.
Second, the discussion about whether we want to discuss celibate pedophilia here isn’t “taboo”. You just didn’t ask this question before posting the article. You didn’t ask it even in the top comment in this thread; at least not directly. The only sentence ending with question mark is: “Does anyone want to clarify the risk of harm to the site?”. Okay, I admit it is related. So, let’s break the taboo and ask openly here:
Dear readers of LessWrong, do you want to have celibate pedophilia discussions on LessWrong, and how specifically?
[pollid:560]
Third, I think the votes on the article and comments already express the opinions of the community.
I am interested in perceptions of the damage expected to be caused to LW from discussion of this topic and wonder if people can be more precise in their thinking about this. Here are some other scenarios:
If some established members discussed pedophilia and their opinions were within the commonly accepted range of views on the topic, would that reflect poorly on LW? For instance, suppose there was a debate where one pole of opinion was the status quo, and others were that child sex abusers should never be released from prison, or that execution would be an inappropriate punishment.
If some established community members who swore they were not pedophiles held a discussion where they expressed views similar to what I have been presenting, would that be damaging to the community? I gather people have now and then questioned whether adult-child sexual activity always causes harm.
In the above cases, would tagging posts “pedophilia” or “childsexabuse” cause damage?
Suppose a member made posts on ordinary LW topics that were of high quality, but noted now and then that they were a celibate pedophile and would like to remind people that such people are among us all the time, would that cause damage?
Typically in a community the people who care about a subject discuss it and those who don’t do not. If a poll revealed that 90% of the community did not want the topic discussed but a small group kept discussing it, would that insulate the community from damage to any extent?
To an extent, but not enough to matter. The topic of child porn is one of the most socially toxic subjects out there, and even being peripherally associated with it can be a life-ending event. Careers have been destroyed, men have been unmade, and Bad Stuff Has Happened in the name of this topic. It does not have to make sense; it does not matter why. What matters is that it is so.
If for no other reason than self defense, I feel these discussions should be blackholed and discouraged with prejudice. We are a rationalist forum, with a specific goal, and the very presence of this topic risks our work. Again, it does not matter that it is unfair, it does not matter that it does not make sense: what matters is that it risks our work, in a nontrivial way.
Your goal is to discuss these topics. Our goal is to spread rationality. These two goals are in conflict for reasons beyond the control of either party, reasons which may or may not make sense but which nevertheless are powerful enough to unmake both of us.
I will not help you in your goal, as it conflicts with mine. I will encourage LW against helping you with your goal, as I feel it conflicts with and is damaging to theirs.
And finally, I recommend you push your agenda on a different forum. I would prefer you not return until you are willing to contribute positively to the core mission of LW—that core mission being the spread and improvement of rational thought processes in the general population. As it stands right now, I feel you have contributed net negative utility to the core mission of LW with your posts, and it disturbs me that you seem unable to see that or understand why.
It seems we have one key difference. Some of you believe that having this topic discussed in the open thread risks serious damage to LW because of the danger of a poor reputation. I am not convinced of this.
If it is not true, then I don’t think anyone has suggested any other reason for harm. If this is true, then my participation may have been harmful, though the marginal harm from a little more discussion seems very small.
So far I made one post in the discussion thread suggesting some pedophiles do not molest children. Following advice there, I made my next post in the open thread, which is this current post. I made one more post in the open thread titled “Assertion: Child porn availability does not increase child sex abuse”. I have responded to comments in all of these threads. My current plan, in response to community concerns, is to reply in these threads but not open any new ones. (I note that because of my low karma, I can’t see the results of the poll, a side effect of the entirely reasonably restriction that I can’t vote in it.)
For possession this is most assuredly so. Conceivably it’s so for arguing in favor of looser restrictions on it. It’s hard for me to believe that it is so for arguing against such changes or for being a contributor on the same forum where it is discussed. If anyone has such cases, I’d love to hear about them—by private message is fine.
I have raised two specific cases where facts aren’t clear and there are issues of different kinds of evidence to weigh in reaching a factual determination under conditions of uncertainty. Others have characterized this as my dressing up my concern for the topic in the guise of rationality. I disagree, and suggest that the reason may be mind-killer reactions—but on your side only. It’s hard to tell if they are representative opinions. There are many, many other ways I could have discussed this topic not related to rationality, and I didn’t, and wouldn’t.
It would seem that your goal would be advanced by seeing how rationality considerations apply to any area of human endeavor, especially where they have not been widely discussed before. If rationality considerations could apply to the debate on incarceration policies for drug offenders, for instance, it would advance the goals of LW to discuss them. If this isn’t true for celibate pedophilia, it is only because it is a taboo topic. That may be a sufficient reason, but I think it’s worth being clear about that.
The results of the poll, at this moment… rot-13′d to prevent spoilers...
V cersre n frdhrapr bs negvpyrf—mreb; mreb creprag
V cersre bar negvpyr bayl—bar; frira creprag
V cersre ab negvpyrf, bayl n qvfphffvba va bcra guernq—svir; guveglfvk creprag
V cersre abg gb qvfphff guvf gbcvp ng nyy—svir; guveglfvk creprag
Fbzrguvat ryfr (cyrnfr rkcynva va n pbzzrag) - mreb; mreb creprag
V ershfr gb ibgr ba guvf gnobb gbcvp, whfg fubj zr gur erfhygf—guerr; gjraglbar creprag
That’s very interesting. At what point can one start talking about implications of a poll without it being a spoiler?
I don’t know the actual reasons why my original Discussion post “Assertion: a large proportion of pedophiles are celibate” was deleted—I figure the community has its methods of operation and assume it was all done according to regulations. I am aware of reasons that were given in this thread for wanting it removed—though I don’t know the relationship of those reasons to why it was actually removed.
Survey results suggest considerable support in the community for discussing the topic in the Open Thread. A reasonable person might think it would be appropriate to repost that topic in the Open thread (I have the text of my original post). Such a person would also want to make sure that would not be considered hostile behavior, in the absence of knowing the actual reasons it was removed. I also don’t know what is supposed to happen here when half a community thinks something shouldn’t be discussed and the other half is OK with it.
I don’t know about any specific rule. The general idea is that people should see the poll first (so that they are not influenced how to vote), but I guess three days later it’s fair game.
Voting means deciding whether members want the article or don’t want the article. Your article was extremely downvoted. Like, one of the most downvoted articles ever; probably in the bottom 2%. So if there was any obvious community consensus about removing an article, it was about this one.
Meta: I think it would be more proper to become familiar with norms of a community first, and publish articles later. Comments like this seem to provide further evidence that you are actually not interested in LessWrong per se, just see it as a platform for your topic.
If you interpret “half of members don’t want to disuss it at all, and the other half prefers keeping it in the open thread only” as a considerable support… well, I guess you were going to interpret almost any result positively.
I guess you are going to do it anyway; just let me say there is nothing “reasonable” about reposting a text that got karma below −20.
Well, if people have a strong desire to discuss something, they will. And each comment is upvoted or downvoted on its merits. Knowing that a large part of community does not want some topic either makes people comment less on it, or become extra careful when writing about it.
At this point I am no longer interested even in meta-discussions of this topic. Tapping out.
EDIT: Must… resist… trolling.
You raise interesting points. One could hypothesize that the downvoting of the original article was due to its placement in the prominent Discussion thread, and seeing it in the open thread people would have not objected to it there. It seems an unlikely interpretation of the bulk of the votes, I agree. The serious downvoting of the original article does weigh heavily on this.
I think those who answered the poll were probably a biased sample in a serious way. Who read it? People who were interested in discussing this topic, and people who were not AND who were still motivated enough to be here to continue arguing for not discussing it. Those who didn’t want it discussed were probably underrerepresented.
How my reputation went from −13 to −40 overnight is intriguing. It had been quite stable, and I made a few posts yesterday that were not especially controversial. I speculate that the tapped-out Viliam-Bur in his review of my posts downvoted them all. I guess that’s fine, but maybe considered at a meta level gives one individual more power than is ideal? It is of course just speculation. I’m interested in alternative hypotheses.