Would you agree with the statement that your meta-level articles are more karma-successful than your object-level articles? Because if that is a fair description, I see it as a huge problem.
I don’t think this is a good characterization of my posts on this website.
If by “meta-level articles”, you mean my philosophy of language work (like “Where to Draw the Boundaries?” and “Unnatural Categories Are Optimized for Deception”), I don’t think success is a problem. I think that was genuinely good work that bears directly on the site’s mission, independently of the historical fact that I had my own idiosyncratic (“object-level”?) reasons for getting obsessed with the philosophy of language in 2019–2020.[1]
If by “object-level articles”, you mean my writing on my special-interest blog about sexology and gender, well, the overwhelming majority of that never got a karma score because it was never cross-posted to Less Wrong. (I only cross-post specific articles from my special-interest blog when I think they’re plausibly relevant to the site’s mission.)
If by “meta-level articles”, you mean my recent memoir sequence which talks about sexology and the philosophy of language and various autobiographical episodes of low-stakes infighting among community members in Berkeley, California, well, those haven’t been karma-successful: parts 1, 2, and 3 are currently[2] sitting at 0.35, 0.08 (!), and 0.54 karma-per-vote, respectively.
If by “meta-level articles”, you mean posts that reply to other users of this website (such as “Contra Yudkowsky on Epistemic Conduct for Author Criticism” or “‘Rationalist Discourse’ Is Like ‘Physicist Motors’”), I contest the “meta level” characterization. I think it’s normal and not particularly meta for intellectuals to write critiques of each other’s work, where Smith writes “Kittens are Cute”, and Jones replies in “Contra Smith on Kitten Cuteness”. Sure, it would be possible for Jones to write a broadly similar article, “Kittens Aren’t Cute”, that ignores Smith altogether, but I think that’s often a worse choice, if the narrow purpose of Jones’s article is to critique the specific arguments made by Smith, notwithstanding that someone else might have better arguments in favor of the Cute Kitten theory that have not been heretofore considered.
You’re correct to notice that a lot of my recent work has a cult-infighting drama angle to it. (This is very explicit in the memoir sequence, but it noticeably leaks into my writing elsewhere.) I’m pretty sure I’m not doing it for the karma. I think I’m doing it because I’m disillusioned and traumatized from the events described in the memoir, and will hopefully get over it after I’ve got it all written down and out of my system.
There’s another couple posts in that sequence (including this coming Saturday, probably). If you don’t like it, I hereby encourage you to strong-downvote it. I write because I selfishly have something to say; I don’t think I’m entitled to anyone’s approval.
In some of those posts, I referenced the work of conventional academics like Brian Skyrmsand others, which I think provides some support for the notion that the nature of language and categories is a philosophically rich topic that someone might find significant in its own right, rather than being some sort of smokescreen for a hidden agenda.
Pt. 1 actually had a much higher score (over 100 points) shortly after publication, but got a lot of downvotes later after being criticized on Twitter.
I don’t think this is a good characterization of my posts on this website.
If by “meta-level articles”, you mean my philosophy of language work (like “Where to Draw the Boundaries?” and “Unnatural Categories Are Optimized for Deception”), I don’t think success is a problem. I think that was genuinely good work that bears directly on the site’s mission, independently of the historical fact that I had my own idiosyncratic (“object-level”?) reasons for getting obsessed with the philosophy of language in 2019–2020.[1]
If by “object-level articles”, you mean my writing on my special-interest blog about sexology and gender, well, the overwhelming majority of that never got a karma score because it was never cross-posted to Less Wrong. (I only cross-post specific articles from my special-interest blog when I think they’re plausibly relevant to the site’s mission.)
If by “meta-level articles”, you mean my recent memoir sequence which talks about sexology and the philosophy of language and various autobiographical episodes of low-stakes infighting among community members in Berkeley, California, well, those haven’t been karma-successful: parts 1, 2, and 3 are currently[2] sitting at 0.35, 0.08 (!), and 0.54 karma-per-vote, respectively.
If by “meta-level articles”, you mean posts that reply to other users of this website (such as “Contra Yudkowsky on Epistemic Conduct for Author Criticism” or “‘Rationalist Discourse’ Is Like ‘Physicist Motors’”), I contest the “meta level” characterization. I think it’s normal and not particularly meta for intellectuals to write critiques of each other’s work, where Smith writes “Kittens are Cute”, and Jones replies in “Contra Smith on Kitten Cuteness”. Sure, it would be possible for Jones to write a broadly similar article, “Kittens Aren’t Cute”, that ignores Smith altogether, but I think that’s often a worse choice, if the narrow purpose of Jones’s article is to critique the specific arguments made by Smith, notwithstanding that someone else might have better arguments in favor of the Cute Kitten theory that have not been heretofore considered.
You’re correct to notice that a lot of my recent work has a cult-infighting drama angle to it. (This is very explicit in the memoir sequence, but it noticeably leaks into my writing elsewhere.) I’m pretty sure I’m not doing it for the karma. I think I’m doing it because I’m disillusioned and traumatized from the events described in the memoir, and will hopefully get over it after I’ve got it all written down and out of my system.
There’s another couple posts in that sequence (including this coming Saturday, probably). If you don’t like it, I hereby encourage you to strong-downvote it. I write because I selfishly have something to say; I don’t think I’m entitled to anyone’s approval.
In some of those posts, I referenced the work of conventional academics like Brian Skyrms and others, which I think provides some support for the notion that the nature of language and categories is a philosophically rich topic that someone might find significant in its own right, rather than being some sort of smokescreen for a hidden agenda.
Pt. 1 actually had a much higher score (over 100 points) shortly after publication, but got a lot of downvotes later after being criticized on Twitter.