A normal person seeing this article and its upvote count will walk away having a very negative view of LessWrong
I feel it very much depends on your idea of a “normal person”.
Someone I consider a “normal person” would zone out after the first couple of paragraphs and go do something else. People who are sufficiently abnormal to finish that post (but still someone I’d consider “close to normal”) would NOT walk away with a very negative view of LW.
Clearly we have a different idea of what’s normal or close-to-normal.
LessWrong can be a gateway for people to care about existential risk and AI safety.
Citation needed. Especially in 2017. I think you’re mistaken about the direction of causality.
Due to 4) getting people to care about AI safety is extrmely important. Due to 3), harming the reputation of LessWrong is really bad
Oh, boy.
First let me point out that people who I would consider as close-to-normal, on hearing that chain of logic would make an rude gesture (physically or mentally, depending on how polite they are) and classify you as a crank they should probably keep away from. What did you call it? ah! “harming the reputation of LW”.
Second, do you really believe that the best way to attract people to LW is to be as… milquetoast as possible?
Third, let’s look at me. Here I am, snarking at everyone and generally unwilling to give out gold stars and express benevolence and empathy towards clueless newbies (and not only newbies). Doesn’t it follow that I’m a great threat to the safety of humanity? Something must be done! Think of the children!
I’m not sure where you’re from, or what the composition of your social circle is, Lumifer—but I think you should find as many people as you can (or use whatever reasonable metric you have for determining a “normal person”) and say: “Being stupid is a disease. The first step to destigmatizing this disease is to stop making fun of stupid people; I too am guilty of this,” and then observe the reaction you get.
Personally, I’m baffled as to how you could think that this wouldn’t engender a negative response from someone who’s never been on LW before.
That being said, simply changing the theme from “anti-stupidity” to “pro-intelligence” would change the post dramatically.
I expect most of my social circle to agree that stupidity is a pathological condition (“disease” is too much associated with infections and contagion for me), albeit very widespread. I don’t know why would you want to destigmatize is, though—incentives matter.
I feel it very much depends on your idea of a “normal person”.
Someone I consider a “normal person” would zone out after the first couple of paragraphs and go do something else. People who are sufficiently abnormal to finish that post (but still someone I’d consider “close to normal”) would NOT walk away with a very negative view of LW.
Clearly we have a different idea of what’s normal or close-to-normal.
Citation needed. Especially in 2017. I think you’re mistaken about the direction of causality.
Oh, boy.
First let me point out that people who I would consider as close-to-normal, on hearing that chain of logic would make an rude gesture (physically or mentally, depending on how polite they are) and classify you as a crank they should probably keep away from. What did you call it? ah! “harming the reputation of LW”.
Second, do you really believe that the best way to attract people to LW is to be as… milquetoast as possible?
Third, let’s look at me. Here I am, snarking at everyone and generally unwilling to give out gold stars and express benevolence and empathy towards clueless newbies (and not only newbies). Doesn’t it follow that I’m a great threat to the safety of humanity? Something must be done! Think of the children!
I’m not sure where you’re from, or what the composition of your social circle is, Lumifer—but I think you should find as many people as you can (or use whatever reasonable metric you have for determining a “normal person”) and say: “Being stupid is a disease. The first step to destigmatizing this disease is to stop making fun of stupid people; I too am guilty of this,” and then observe the reaction you get.
Personally, I’m baffled as to how you could think that this wouldn’t engender a negative response from someone who’s never been on LW before.
That being said, simply changing the theme from “anti-stupidity” to “pro-intelligence” would change the post dramatically.
I expect most of my social circle to agree that stupidity is a pathological condition (“disease” is too much associated with infections and contagion for me), albeit very widespread. I don’t know why would you want to destigmatize is, though—incentives matter.