Although thinking about it, there is a case for a rational attachment to karma: it entitles us to say stupid things in the future.
Yvain, for example, could (at time of writing) make a comment so colossally stupid that it attracts 26527 downvotes, and he wouldn’t lose the ability to make top level posts. I’m not sure what that comment would be, but a part of me really wants to read it.
“Eliezer has been working really hard lately, and I think he should take a well-deserved and extremely long break before finishing the current storyline in Methods of Rationality.”
I think the context, and the quotation marks, are highly relevant. If the same comment were posted without quotes as a top-level comment in the HPMOR thread, I’d expect it to be downvoted to −3, but probably not beyond that, since that’s the threshold where most people stop seeing comments.
Everything about these characters and their strips is even more bizarre than “regular” Penny Arcade continuity with non sequiturs and Twisp speaking only in single word sentences. The duo was created out of Gabe and Tycho’s mystification that they were seemingly unable to create something that their readership would dislike
there is a case for a rational attachment to karma: it entitles us to say stupid things in the future.
And that’s really the point, isn’t it? It’s a quantified measurement of how much benefit of the doubt to give the karma holder. If someone posts something which seems stupid, and they have 0 karma, that increases my confidence that it really is stupid. If someone posts something which seems stupid, and they have 5000 karma, that shifts my confidence towards “I must be missing something.”
If you were the first person to see such a post (where Yvain made such a stupid comment that you believed that it deserved to attract 26527 downvotes), would you, personally, downvote it for stupidity or would you upvote it for interestingness?
EDIT: I’d be interested in answers from others as well.
Given that I’ve never encountered a comment that stupid, I’m not sure my intuition is correct here. I mean, we’re approaching “huge number of dust specks” level here. For all I know, the post would be so horrifying that I would be physically unable to avoid downvoting it.
Given his track record—which is roughly estimated by his karma score—I would assume a lot of things before I assumed that Yvain had genuinely posted something that impressively stupid. (Hacker, friend at keys, misunderstanding, etc.) So I probably wouldn’t vote on it, but if followup comments made it clear that yes, it was Yvain, and yes, it was really that stupid, I’d downvote the followup.
Well, no. Because it’s here, we’re really really self-aware and analytical about it. That doesn’t spare us from being subject to it. ;)
Although thinking about it, there is a case for a rational attachment to karma: it entitles us to say stupid things in the future.
Yvain, for example, could (at time of writing) make a comment so colossally stupid that it attracts 26527 downvotes, and he wouldn’t lose the ability to make top level posts. I’m not sure what that comment would be, but a part of me really wants to read it.
“Eliezer has been working really hard lately, and I think he should take a well-deserved and extremely long break before finishing the current storyline in Methods of Rationality.”
At +6 right now. It seems you fail at failing, Yvain. Fail harder.
I think the context, and the quotation marks, are highly relevant. If the same comment were posted without quotes as a top-level comment in the HPMOR thread, I’d expect it to be downvoted to −3, but probably not beyond that, since that’s the threshold where most people stop seeing comments.
Oh, well played, sir. Well played indeed.
Wow! Evil. Effective. Not to mention a great demonstration of the criticality of context.
Definitely deserves a link or mention in a newbie’s guide.
Reminds me of this
KILL MURDER KILL MURDER KILL MURDER KILL MURDER KILL
And that’s really the point, isn’t it? It’s a quantified measurement of how much benefit of the doubt to give the karma holder. If someone posts something which seems stupid, and they have 0 karma, that increases my confidence that it really is stupid. If someone posts something which seems stupid, and they have 5000 karma, that shifts my confidence towards “I must be missing something.”
Possibly relevant: Reddit’s bottom 10 comments as of 3 months ago. The lowest one is at about −7462.
If you were the first person to see such a post (where Yvain made such a stupid comment that you believed that it deserved to attract 26527 downvotes), would you, personally, downvote it for stupidity or would you upvote it for interestingness?
EDIT: I’d be interested in answers from others as well.
Given that I’ve never encountered a comment that stupid, I’m not sure my intuition is correct here. I mean, we’re approaching “huge number of dust specks” level here. For all I know, the post would be so horrifying that I would be physically unable to avoid downvoting it.
Given his track record—which is roughly estimated by his karma score—I would assume a lot of things before I assumed that Yvain had genuinely posted something that impressively stupid. (Hacker, friend at keys, misunderstanding, etc.) So I probably wouldn’t vote on it, but if followup comments made it clear that yes, it was Yvain, and yes, it was really that stupid, I’d downvote the followup.
I suspect I’d downvote it, but reply with “downvoted, but bravo!”