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Morendil comments on Boo lights: groupthink edition - Less Wrong
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Lots of different words and phrases "devalue" different technical terms, since they exist outside of their technical definition. From what I can see from the OED, group think has been used as a term since 1923 and similar phrases like group mind were used in the late 19th century. Because someone makes a definition in a field it does not strip the original word or phrase of its meaning. If that was the case I'm sure lawyers would have a field day with all of us and that I could pick out quite a few misuses of onto on this site.
The technical meaning you point to is interesting. However, it does not even apply to this site as no one here is making decisions by committee, this is a forum/group blog. I'm surprised you pointed to it as the culture here has some of the pathologies mentioned, such as:
These two aren't really as much are your fault, it's a bummer we can't access/share academic articles that pertain to many of the subjects discussed here.
A little more trouble for this site is the solutions though:
Obvious trouble.
One of Eliezer's biggest flaw's is his high opinion of himself and those that agree with him:
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/25848?in=49:06&out=49:12
Along with it the wholesale writing off of others that he knows very little of. From Eliezer's point of view there are very few, if any, experts of any worth to consult on many issues at all. This sort of thought is toxic for collaboration with others and can be profoundly isolating.
The history of this site is not very long and it should not surprise anyone that most around here tow the Eliezer line. He created this site after becoming a smallish blog celebrity on overcomingbias. That those that came to populate this site largely agree with him should not at all be surprising. That you think no one should be able to charge groupthink comes off as incredibly defense and really silly given that it would be a little shocking if it wasn't here.
Now to try to be constructive, here are some things that could facilitate interesting discussions around here:
The time when FAI was banned seemed to have a much more diverse and interesting discourse. Why retread the same old topics when you could explore new things that no one here knows what 'Rationality' should say about it?
Let's see some algorithms/programs or something besides overly long posts. I bet some cool stuff could come out of it. Why argue about which two things are better when you could try to see by testing it. Go empiricism.
Re "less talking", yeah. One thing that particularly disappointed me was when I proposed starting up a Jaynes study group and got pretty much zero uptake. More disappointed even when people cited "too hard" as the reason.
Good points about technical meaning. I guess it's not really people respecting the exact framework from Janis that I'd like, so much as saying things which are more interesting than "you guys are biased". It's just too easy to troll that way.
I'm not saying "no one should be able to charge groupthink". I'm hoping that the discussion below this post will encourage and help newcomers (or even regulars) to make clearer and more pointed diagnoses of the pathologies of this community. Just saying "Robin and Eliezer have really biased the crowd on this one", and particularly in the context of a discussion which was devoted to close critical examination of "this one", is providing no value.
I'm a relative newcomer, so not really motivated by the celebrity status from OB. I want to encourage discourse that provides value and discourage that which does not. I am so motivated not out of righteousness, but for purely selfish motives: I have learned a lot from this site already (Bayes, Jaynes, MWI, a bunch of smaller conceptual tools from Eliezer's OB writings) and I want more of that good stuff. Positive ROI is what this is about.