I am much more sympathetic to “keeping goatse off of site X” than “keeping people from seeing goatse,” and so that’s a reasonable policy. If your site is about posting pictures of cute kittens, then goatse is not a picture of a cute kitten.
However, it seems to me that suspected Langford basilisks are part of the material of LessWrong. Imagine someone posted in the discussion “hey guys, I really want to be an atheist but I can’t stop worrying about whether or not the Rapture will happen, and if it does life will suck.” It seems to me that we would have a lot to say to them about how they could approach the situation more rationally.
And, if Langford basilisks exist, religion has found them. Someone got a nightmare because of Roko’s idea, but people fainted upon hearing Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Why are we not looking for the Perseus for this Medusa? If rationality is like an immune system, and we’re interested in refining our rationality, we ought to be looking for antibodies.
However, it seems to me that suspected Langford basilisks are part of the material of LessWrong.
It seems to me that Eliezer’s response as moderator of LessWrong strongly implies that he does not believe this is the case. Your goal, then, would be to convince Eliezer that it ought to be part of the LessWrong syllabus, as it were. Cialdini’s Influence and other texts would probably advise you to work within his restrictions and conform to his desires as much as practical—on a site like LessWrong, though, I am not sure how applicable the advice would be, and in any case I don’t mean to be prescriptive about it.
Censoring posts that display Goatse on LessWrong.
Generally, censoring posts that display Goatse on non-Goatse websites.
I am much more sympathetic to “keeping goatse off of site X” than “keeping people from seeing goatse,” and so that’s a reasonable policy. If your site is about posting pictures of cute kittens, then goatse is not a picture of a cute kitten.
However, it seems to me that suspected Langford basilisks are part of the material of LessWrong. Imagine someone posted in the discussion “hey guys, I really want to be an atheist but I can’t stop worrying about whether or not the Rapture will happen, and if it does life will suck.” It seems to me that we would have a lot to say to them about how they could approach the situation more rationally.
And, if Langford basilisks exist, religion has found them. Someone got a nightmare because of Roko’s idea, but people fainted upon hearing Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Why are we not looking for the Perseus for this Medusa? If rationality is like an immune system, and we’re interested in refining our rationality, we ought to be looking for antibodies.
It seems to me that Eliezer’s response as moderator of LessWrong strongly implies that he does not believe this is the case. Your goal, then, would be to convince Eliezer that it ought to be part of the LessWrong syllabus, as it were. Cialdini’s Influence and other texts would probably advise you to work within his restrictions and conform to his desires as much as practical—on a site like LessWrong, though, I am not sure how applicable the advice would be, and in any case I don’t mean to be prescriptive about it.
Right. I see a few paths to do that that may work (and no, holding the future hostage is not one of them).
Is Goatse supposed to be a big deal? Someone showed it to me and I literally said “who cares?”
I totally agree. There are far more important internet requests that my (Australian) government should be trying to filter. Priorities people!
Yes.
I feel like reaction videos are biased towards people who have funny or dramatic reactions, but point taken.