Whenever the subject comes up (no matter who brings it up, and which political stripes they wear), it often explodes into a giant thread of comments that’s far more popular than whatever the original thread was ostensibly about.
I think this observation is not incompatible with a self-censorship hypothesis. It could mean that topic is somewhat taboo, so people don’t want to make a serious article about it, but not completely taboo, so it is mentioned in comments in other articles. And because it can never be officially resolved, it keeps repeating.
What would happen if LW had a similar “soft taboo” about e.g. religion? What if the official policy would be that we want to raise the sanity waterline by bringing basic rationality to as many people as possible, and criticizing religion would make many religious people unwelcome, therefore members are recommended to avoid discussing any religion insensitively?
I guess the topic would appear frequently in completely unrelated articles. For example in an article about Many Worlds hypothesis someone would oppose it precisely because it feels incompatible with Bible; so the person would honestly describe their reasons. Immediately there would be dozen comments about religion. Another article would explain some human behavior based on evolutionary psychology, and again, one spark, and there would be a group of comments about religion. Etc. Precisely because people wouldn’t feel allowed to write an article about how religion is completely wrong, they would express this sentiment in comments instead.
We should avoid mindkilling like this: if one person says “2+2 is good” and other person says “2+2 is bad”, don’t join the discussion, and downvote it. But if one person says “2+2=4” and other person says “2+2=5″, ask them to show the evidence.
What would happen if LW had a similar “soft taboo” about e.g. religion?
There is a rather large difference between LW attitudes to religion and to gender issues.
On religion, nearly everyone here agrees about religion: all religions are factually wrong, and fundamentally so. There are a few exceptions but not enough to make a controversy.
On gender, there is a visible lack of any such consensus. Those with a settled view on the matter may think that their view should be the consensus, but the fact is, it isn’t.
I think this observation is not incompatible with a self-censorship hypothesis. It could mean that topic is somewhat taboo, so people don’t want to make a serious article about it, but not completely taboo, so it is mentioned in comments in other articles. And because it can never be officially resolved, it keeps repeating.
What would happen if LW had a similar “soft taboo” about e.g. religion? What if the official policy would be that we want to raise the sanity waterline by bringing basic rationality to as many people as possible, and criticizing religion would make many religious people unwelcome, therefore members are recommended to avoid discussing any religion insensitively?
I guess the topic would appear frequently in completely unrelated articles. For example in an article about Many Worlds hypothesis someone would oppose it precisely because it feels incompatible with Bible; so the person would honestly describe their reasons. Immediately there would be dozen comments about religion. Another article would explain some human behavior based on evolutionary psychology, and again, one spark, and there would be a group of comments about religion. Etc. Precisely because people wouldn’t feel allowed to write an article about how religion is completely wrong, they would express this sentiment in comments instead.
We should avoid mindkilling like this: if one person says “2+2 is good” and other person says “2+2 is bad”, don’t join the discussion, and downvote it. But if one person says “2+2=4” and other person says “2+2=5″, ask them to show the evidence.
There is a rather large difference between LW attitudes to religion and to gender issues.
On religion, nearly everyone here agrees about religion: all religions are factually wrong, and fundamentally so. There are a few exceptions but not enough to make a controversy.
On gender, there is a visible lack of any such consensus. Those with a settled view on the matter may think that their view should be the consensus, but the fact is, it isn’t.