Emile comments on Less Wrong: Open Thread, September 2010 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: matt 01 September 2010 01:40AM

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

Comments (610)

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

Comment author: Emile 01 September 2010 04:37:54PM 2 points [-]

Do people think that a discussion forum on the moderation and deletion policies would be beneficial?

I don't. Possible downsides are flame wars among people who support different types of moderation policies (and there are bound to be some - self-styled rebels who pride themselves in challenging the status quo and going against groupthink are not rare on the net), and I don't see any possible upsides. Having a Benevolent Dictator For Life works quite well.

See this on Meatball Wiki, that has quite a few pages on organization of Online Communities.

Comment author: homunq 01 September 2010 05:58:07PM 7 points [-]

I don't want a revolution, and don't believe I'll change the mind of somebody committed not to thinking too deeply about something. I just want some marginal changes.

I think Roko got a pretty clear explanation of why his post was deleted. I don't think I did. I think everyone should. I suspect there may be others like me.

I also think that there should be public ground rules as to what is safe. I think it is possible to state such rules so that they are relatively clear to anyone who has stepped past them, somewhat informative to those who haven't, and not particularly inviting of experimentation. I think that the presence of such ground rules would allow some discussion as to the danger or non-danger of the forbidden idea and/or as to the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of supressing it. Since I believe that the truth is "non-danger" and "ineffectiveness", and the truth will tend to win the argument over time, I think that would be a good thing.

Comment author: timtyler 02 September 2010 08:26:15AM *  2 points [-]
Comment author: homunq 02 September 2010 09:33:06AM 0 points [-]

Your sarcasm would not be obvious if I didn't recognize your username.

Comment author: timtyler 02 September 2010 09:57:02AM *  0 points [-]

Hmm - I added a link to the source, which hopefully helps to explain.

Comment author: homunq 02 September 2010 03:41:03PM 0 points [-]

Quotes can be used sarcastically or not.

Comment author: timtyler 02 September 2010 07:51:14PM *  0 points [-]

I don't think I was being sarcastic. I won't take the juices out of the comment by analysing it too completely - but a good part of it was the joke of comparing Less Wrong with Fight Club.

We can't tell you what materials are classified - that information is classified.

Comment author: Emile 02 September 2010 08:21:43AM 2 points [-]

I think Roko got a pretty clear explanation of why his post was deleted. I don't think I did.

It's probably better to solve this by private conversation with Eliezer, than by trying to drum up support in an open thread.

Too much meta discussion is bad for a community.

Comment author: homunq 02 September 2010 09:30:06AM *  0 points [-]

The thing I'm trying to drum up support for is an incremental change in current policy; for instance, a safe and useful version of the policy being publicly available. I believe that's possible, and I believe it is more appropriate to discuss this in public.

(Actually, since I've been making noise about this, and since I've promised not to reveal it, I now know the secret. No, I won't tell you, I promised that. I won't even tell who told me, even though I didn't promise not to, because they'd just get too many requests to reveal it. But I can say that I don't believe in it, and also that I think [though others might disagree] that a public policy could be crafted which dealt with the issue without exacerbating it, even if it were real.)

Comment author: JGWeissman 01 September 2010 06:13:37PM *  0 points [-]

the truth is "non-danger"

Normally yes, but this case involves a potentially adversarial agent with intelligence and optimizing power vastly superior to your own, and which cares about your epistemic state as well as your actions.

Comment author: homunq 01 September 2010 06:49:44PM *  4 points [-]

Look, my post addressed these issues, and I'd be happy to discuss them further, if the ground rules were clear. Right now, we're not having that discussion; we're talking about whether that discussion is desirable, and if so, how to make it possible. I think that the truth will out; if you're right, you'll probably win the discussion. So although we disagree on danger, we should agree on discussing danger within some well-defined ground rules which are comprehensibly summarized in some safe form.

Comment author: wedrifid 02 September 2010 03:14:49AM -1 points [-]

I think that the truth will out

Really? Go read the sequences! ;)