the issue isn’t: does X person owe Y person an answer. it’s: issue X must be answered, by someone, as part of humanity making intellectual progress
people who do not participate in this are not progress-making intellectuals. of course, if they are instead answering issues Y and Z, that’s good. but sufficiently bad prioritization (e.g. ignoring a bunch of hard issues while addressing easy ones) will waste one’s career.
and what should one do about this? well, try to have some process so your prioritization isn’t biased.
1) i am not a sockpuppet
2) accusations of sockpuppetry are boring meta, in general
3) maintaining a disagreement through many iterations of discussion is not remotely the same as a conscious strategy of arguing until exhaustion and then declaring victory. perspectives vary widely and communication is hard. discussions need to be approached with these facts in mind and not burdened by unrealistic expectations of quick results.
4) i posted this to LW because I thought discussion of a robust process to combat intellectual bias would be of PARTICULAR interest to LW people, and not as part of an elaborate strategy of wanting to appear intellectually/morally superior.
I’m not offended or anything btw. i merely wanted to confront these claims head on.