I think you got a grip on the gist. I didn’t mention boredom in my question but you went straight to where I have been in looking at the topic. But I do not think there is reason to believe boredom is a basic state of human life indicative of how it has always been. I think it may be more related to the industrial lifestyle.
Take the 2012 Mayan calendar crap. Charles Mann concludes his final appendix in “1491” with a mention of the pop-phenom, “Archaeologists of the Maya tend to be annoyed by 2012 speculation. Not only is it mistaken, they believe, but it fundamentally misrepresents the Maya. Rather than being an example of native wisdom, scholars say, the apocalyptic ‘prophecy’ is a projection of European values onto non-European people.” The apocalypse is the end of boredom for a bored people.
I personally do not like the boring, as you suggested, I have come to grips with that and live accordingly.
Don’t tell anyone, but I’m not immune to 2012-ism myself. At the very least, that old Mayan calendar is one of the more striking intrusions of astronomical facts into human culture; it seems to be built around Martian and Venusian cycles, and the precession of Earth.
So part of being new here...the karma thing. Did you just get docked karma for the assertion you are into 2012-ism? I didn’t do it. Is there a list of taboos? I got docked for a comment on intuition (I speculate that is why).
There’s no list. In general, people downvote what they want to see less of on the site, and upvote what they want to see more of. A −1 score means one more person downvoted than upvoted; not generally worth worrying about. My guess is someone pattern-matched MP’s comment to fuzzy-headed mysticism.
The idea of ‘what you want to see less of’ is fairly interesting. On a site dedicated to rationality I was expecting that one would want to see:
-the discussion of rationality explicitly = the Sequences
-examples of rationality in addressing problems
-a distinction between rationality and other thinking processes and when rational thinking is appropriate (ie- the boundaries of rationality)
It would be a reasonable hypothesis—based on what I have seen—that the last point causes a negative feedback. MP demonstrated a great deal of rationality (and knowledge) in addressing the questions I raised in the first post. Given this, I find it intriguing that he is captivated in any way by 2012ism. Anyway, I would expect upvotes for any comment that clarifies or contributes to the parent, downvotes for comments which obscure, and nothing for humor or personal side notes (they can generate productive input and help create an atmosphere of camaraderie).
I saw the thread on elitism somewhere and noted that the idea of elitism and the karma system are intertwined. It seems a simple explicit description of karma and what it accomplishes may be a good thread for a top member to start. - if it exists already I was implying I sought it in my request for a ‘list of taboos’. It may or may not be a good idea to tell people criteria for up/down-voting, but is there a discussion about that?
Different people want to see, and want to avoid seeing, different things. The net karma score of any given comment is an expression of our collective preferences, filtered extremely noisily through which subset of the site happens to read any given comment.
I would prefer LW not try to impose voting standards beyond “upvote what you want, downvote what you don’t want.” If we want a less croudsourced value judgment, we can pay someone we trust to go through and rate all the comments, though I would not contribute to that project.
people downvote what they want to see less of on the site
Or something they disagree with strongly enough. Or if they dislike the poster. Some just press a wrong button. Some have cats walking on keyboards. If you get repeatedly downvoted to −3 or so, then there is a cause for concern.
I think you got a grip on the gist. I didn’t mention boredom in my question but you went straight to where I have been in looking at the topic. But I do not think there is reason to believe boredom is a basic state of human life indicative of how it has always been. I think it may be more related to the industrial lifestyle.
Take the 2012 Mayan calendar crap. Charles Mann concludes his final appendix in “1491” with a mention of the pop-phenom, “Archaeologists of the Maya tend to be annoyed by 2012 speculation. Not only is it mistaken, they believe, but it fundamentally misrepresents the Maya. Rather than being an example of native wisdom, scholars say, the apocalyptic ‘prophecy’ is a projection of European values onto non-European people.” The apocalypse is the end of boredom for a bored people.
I personally do not like the boring, as you suggested, I have come to grips with that and live accordingly.
Don’t tell anyone, but I’m not immune to 2012-ism myself. At the very least, that old Mayan calendar is one of the more striking intrusions of astronomical facts into human culture; it seems to be built around Martian and Venusian cycles, and the precession of Earth.
So part of being new here...the karma thing. Did you just get docked karma for the assertion you are into 2012-ism? I didn’t do it. Is there a list of taboos? I got docked for a comment on intuition (I speculate that is why).
There’s no list. In general, people downvote what they want to see less of on the site, and upvote what they want to see more of. A −1 score means one more person downvoted than upvoted; not generally worth worrying about. My guess is someone pattern-matched MP’s comment to fuzzy-headed mysticism.
The idea of ‘what you want to see less of’ is fairly interesting. On a site dedicated to rationality I was expecting that one would want to see:
-the discussion of rationality explicitly = the Sequences
-examples of rationality in addressing problems
-a distinction between rationality and other thinking processes and when rational thinking is appropriate (ie- the boundaries of rationality)
It would be a reasonable hypothesis—based on what I have seen—that the last point causes a negative feedback. MP demonstrated a great deal of rationality (and knowledge) in addressing the questions I raised in the first post. Given this, I find it intriguing that he is captivated in any way by 2012ism. Anyway, I would expect upvotes for any comment that clarifies or contributes to the parent, downvotes for comments which obscure, and nothing for humor or personal side notes (they can generate productive input and help create an atmosphere of camaraderie).
I saw the thread on elitism somewhere and noted that the idea of elitism and the karma system are intertwined. It seems a simple explicit description of karma and what it accomplishes may be a good thread for a top member to start. - if it exists already I was implying I sought it in my request for a ‘list of taboos’. It may or may not be a good idea to tell people criteria for up/down-voting, but is there a discussion about that?
Different people want to see, and want to avoid seeing, different things. The net karma score of any given comment is an expression of our collective preferences, filtered extremely noisily through which subset of the site happens to read any given comment.
I would prefer LW not try to impose voting standards beyond “upvote what you want, downvote what you don’t want.” If we want a less croudsourced value judgment, we can pay someone we trust to go through and rate all the comments, though I would not contribute to that project.
Or something they disagree with strongly enough. Or if they dislike the poster. Some just press a wrong button. Some have cats walking on keyboards. If you get repeatedly downvoted to −3 or so, then there is a cause for concern.