Occasionally I see a well received post that I think is just fundamentally flawed, but I refrain from criticising it because I donât want to get downvoted to hell. đ
This is a failure mode of LessWrong.
Iâm merely rationally responding to karma incentives. đ
Huh? What else are you planning to spend your karma on?
Karma is the privilege to say controversial or stupid things without getting banned. Heck, most of them will get upvoted anyway. Perhaps the true lesson here is to abandon the scarcity mindset.
[OK, 2 comments on a short shortform is probably excessive. sorry. ]
This is a failure mode of LessWrong.
No, this is a failure mode of your posting strategy. You should WANT some posts to get downvoted to hell, in order to better understand the limits of this groupâs ability to rationally discuss some topics. Think of cases where you are the local-context-contrarian as bounds on the level of credence to give to the site.
Beliefs/âimpressions are less useful in communication (for echo chamber reasons) than for reasoning and other decision making, they are importantly personal things. Mostly not being worth communicating doesnât mean they are not worth maintaining in a good shape. They do influence which arguments that stand on their own are worth communicating, but there arenât always arguments that allow communicating relevant beliefs themselves.
I donât think the fact that a post is well-received is alone reason that criticism gets downvoted to hell. Usually, quality criticism can get upvoted even if a post is well received.
The cases I have in mind are where I have substantial disagreements with the underlying paradigm/âworldview/âframework/âpremises on which the post rests on to the extent that I think the post is basically completely worthless.
For example Kokotaljoâs âWhat 2026 Looks Like?â; I think elaborate concrete predictions of the future are not only nigh useless but probably net negative for opportunity cost/âdiverted resources (including action) reasons.
My underlying arguments are extensive, but are not really about the post itself, but the very practice/âexercise of writing elaborate future vignettes. And I donât have the energy/âmotivation to draft up said substantial disagreements into a full fledged essay.
If you call a post a prediction thatâs not a prediction, then you are going to be downvoted. Nothing wrong with that.
He called his goal âThe goal is to write out a detailed future history (âtrajectoryâ) that is as realistic (to me) as I can currently manage, i.e. Iâm not aware of any alternative trajectory that is similarly detailed and clearly more plausible to me.â
Thatâs scenario planning, even if he only provides one scenario. He doesnât provide any probabilities in the post so itâs not a prediction. Scenario planning is different than how we at LessWrong usually approach the future with prediction but scenario planning matters for how a lot of powerful institutions in the world orient themselves about the future.
Having a scenario like that allows someone at the department of defense to say: Letâs do a wargame for this scenario. You might say âItâs bad that the department of defense uses wargames to think about the futureâ but in the world, we live in they do.
I additionally think the scenario is very unlikely. So unlikely that wargaming for that scenario is only useful insomuch as your strategy is general enough to apply to many other scenarios.
Wargaming for that scenario in particular is privileging a hypothesis that hasnât warranted it.
The scenario is very unlikely on priors and its 2022 predictions didnât quite bear out.
Part of the advantage of being specific about 2022 and 2023 is that it allows people to update on it toward taking the whole scenario more or less seriously.
Having scenarios that are unlikely based on priors means that you can update more if they turn out to go that way than scenarios that you deemed to be likely to happen anyway.
I donât think this is necessarily true. I disagree openly on a number of topics, and generally get slightly upvoted, or at least only downvoted a little. In fact, I WANT to have some controversial comments (with > 10 votes and â2 < karma < 10), or I worry that Iâm censoring myself.
The times Iâve been downvoted to hell, Iâve been able to identify fairly specific reasons, usually not just criticizing, but criticizing in an unhelpful way.
Occasionally I see a well received post that I think is just fundamentally flawed, but I refrain from criticising it because I donât want to get downvoted to hell. đ
This is a failure mode of LessWrong.
Iâm merely rationally responding to karma incentives. đ
Huh? What else are you planning to spend your karma on?
Karma is the privilege to say controversial or stupid things without getting banned. Heck, most of them will get upvoted anyway. Perhaps the true lesson here is to abandon the scarcity mindset.
[OK, 2 comments on a short shortform is probably excessive. sorry. ]
No, this is a failure mode of your posting strategy. You should WANT some posts to get downvoted to hell, in order to better understand the limits of this groupâs ability to rationally discuss some topics. Think of cases where you are the local-context-contrarian as bounds on the level of credence to give to the site.
Stay alert. Trust no one. Keep your laser handy.
Beliefs/âimpressions are less useful in communication (for echo chamber reasons) than for reasoning and other decision making, they are importantly personal things. Mostly not being worth communicating doesnât mean they are not worth maintaining in a good shape. They do influence which arguments that stand on their own are worth communicating, but there arenât always arguments that allow communicating relevant beliefs themselves.
I donât think the fact that a post is well-received is alone reason that criticism gets downvoted to hell. Usually, quality criticism can get upvoted even if a post is well received.
The cases I have in mind are where I have substantial disagreements with the underlying paradigm/âworldview/âframework/âpremises on which the post rests on to the extent that I think the post is basically completely worthless.
For example Kokotaljoâs âWhat 2026 Looks Like?â; I think elaborate concrete predictions of the future are not only nigh useless but probably net negative for opportunity cost/âdiverted resources (including action) reasons.
My underlying arguments are extensive, but are not really about the post itself, but the very practice/âexercise of writing elaborate future vignettes. And I donât have the energy/âmotivation to draft up said substantial disagreements into a full fledged essay.
If you call a post a prediction thatâs not a prediction, then you are going to be downvoted. Nothing wrong with that.
He called his goal âThe goal is to write out a detailed future history (âtrajectoryâ) that is as realistic (to me) as I can currently manage, i.e. Iâm not aware of any alternative trajectory that is similarly detailed and clearly more plausible to me.â
Thatâs scenario planning, even if he only provides one scenario. He doesnât provide any probabilities in the post so itâs not a prediction. Scenario planning is different than how we at LessWrong usually approach the future with prediction but scenario planning matters for how a lot of powerful institutions in the world orient themselves about the future.
Having a scenario like that allows someone at the department of defense to say: Letâs do a wargame for this scenario. You might say âItâs bad that the department of defense uses wargames to think about the futureâ but in the world, we live in they do.
I additionally think the scenario is very unlikely. So unlikely that wargaming for that scenario is only useful insomuch as your strategy is general enough to apply to many other scenarios.
Wargaming for that scenario in particular is privileging a hypothesis that hasnât warranted it.
The scenario is very unlikely on priors and its 2022 predictions didnât quite bear out.
Part of the advantage of being specific about 2022 and 2023 is that it allows people to update on it toward taking the whole scenario more or less seriously.
I didnât need to see 2022 to know that the scenario would not be an accurate description of reality.
On priors that was just very unlikely.
Having scenarios that are unlikely based on priors means that you can update more if they turn out to go that way than scenarios that you deemed to be likely to happen anyway.
I donât think this is necessarily true. I disagree openly on a number of topics, and generally get slightly upvoted, or at least only downvoted a little. In fact, I WANT to have some controversial comments (with > 10 votes and â2 < karma < 10), or I worry that Iâm censoring myself.
The times Iâve been downvoted to hell, Iâve been able to identify fairly specific reasons, usually not just criticizing, but criticizing in an unhelpful way.
Community opinion is not exactly meaningful if opinions are not aggregated to it.
Say no to ascending to simulcra heaven
Iâd be surprised if this happened frequently for good criticisms.