orthonormal comments on The Importance of Self-Doubt - Less Wrong

23 Post author: multifoliaterose 19 August 2010 10:47PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (726)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: orthonormal 21 August 2010 07:42:46AM 3 points [-]

Karma scores in this thread suggest it falls in reference class of "arguing against groupthink", which ironically increases estimates of Eliezer being a crackpot, and lesswrong turning into a cult, possibly via evaporative cooling.

No, that's really not borne out by the evidence. Multifolaterose's posts have been strongly upvoted, it seems to me, by a significant group of readers who see themselves as defenders against groupthink. It's just that you have been voted down for refusing to see a distinction that's clearly there, between "here is a complicated thing which nevertheless must be reducible to simpler things, which is what we're in the process of rigorously doing" and "here is a magical thing which we won't ever have a mathematical understanding of, but it will work if we play by the right rules".

Comment author: taw 21 August 2010 08:07:22AM 2 points [-]

Is there a way to find random sample of threads with heavy downvoting? My experience on reddit suggests it's usually groupthink.

Comment author: orthonormal 21 August 2010 08:17:01AM 1 point [-]

Set your preferences to only hide comments below -5. Go to an old Open Thread or a particularly large discussion, and search for "comment score below threshold".