Attention Lurkers: Please say hi

Kevin

Some research says that lurkers make up over 90% of online groups. I suspect that Less Wrong has an even higher percentage of lurkers than other online communities.

Please post a comment in this thread saying "Hi." You can say more if you want, but just posting "Hi" is good for a guaranteed free point of karma.

Also see the introduction thread.

Some research says that lurkers make up over 90% of online groups. I suspect that Less Wrong has an even higher percentage of lurkers than other online communities.

Please post a comment in this thread saying "Hi." You can say more if you want, but just posting "Hi" is good for a guaranteed free point of karma.

Also see the introduction thread.

Firstly, if there's an unspeakable danger, surely it'd be best to try and not let others be exposed, so this one's really a question of if it's dangerous, and not an argument in itself. It's only a PR stunt if it's not dangerous, if it's dangerous good PR would merely be a side effect.

The drama was bad IMO. Looks like bad publicity to me.

I discredit the PR stunt idea because I don't think SIAI would've dumb enough to pull something like this as a stunt. If we were being modeled as ones who'd simply go along with a lie- well, there's no way we'd be modeled as such fools. If we were modeled as ones who would look at a lie carefully, a PR stunt wouldn't work anyways.

There's also the fact that people who have read the post and are unaffiliated with the SIAI are taking it seriously. That says something, too.

I discredit the PR stunt idea because I don't think SIAI would've dumb enough to pull something like this as a stunt. If we were being modeled as ones who'd simply go along with a lie- well, there's no way we'd be modeled as such fools. If we were modeled as ones who would look at a lie carefully, a PR stunt wouldn't work anyways.

Well, it doesn't really matter what the people involved were thinking, the issue is whether all the associated drama eventually has a net positive or negative effect. It evidently drives some people away - but may increase eng... (read more)

2jimrandomh16y

Not quite. It's a question of what the probability that it's dangerous is, what the magnitude of the effect is if so, what the cost (including goodwill and credibility) to suppressing it are, and what the cost (including psychological harm to third parties) to not suppressing it is. To make a proper judgement, you must determine all four of these, separately, and perform the expected utility computation (probabiltiy effect-if-dangerous + effect-if-not-dangerous vs cost). A sufficiently large magnitude of effect is sufficient to outweigh both* a small probability and large cost. That's the problem here. Some people see a small probability, round it off to 0, and see that the effect-if-not-dangerous isn't huge, and conclude that it's ok to talk about it, without computing the expected utility. I tell you that I have done the computation, and that the utility of hearing, discussing, and allowing discussion of the banned topic are all negative. Furthermore, they are negative by enough orders of magnitude that I believe anyone who concludes otherwise must be either missing a piece of information vital to the computation, or have made an error in their reasoning. They remain negative even if one of the probability or the effect-if-not-dangerous is set to zero. Both missing information and miscalculation are especially likely - the former because information is not readily shared on this topic, and the latter because it is inherently confusing.

3wnoise16y

Well, many are only taking it seriously under pain of censorship.

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Attention Lurkers: Please say hi

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