Every time I ask a clarifying question of any of your claims, you get extremely defensive and fail to answer it, which suggests a poor understaning of what you're trying to present results on.

Regarding the comment thread you linked to, I agree that the initial response you received was defensive and uninformative. I am not surprised to see it sitting at zero upvotes.

When you prodded further, you got a good response, so while I think you didn't come out badly in that exchange at all, I am surprised that you are citing it as evidence of lukeprog understanding poorly. It instead suggests that he responds defensively even when he does understand and has a cogent answer, and that defensiveness from him implies shallow understanding far less than it would from others.

I think your contributions are overrated.

I have little problem with bluntly telling people that they suck, and by extension don't mind less offending forthright communication, but I am leery of discussing people's work by evaluating how people's work compares to the popular perception of their work. It introduces an unnecessary factual dispute - how people are perceived.

E.g. "Loui Eriksson is the most underrated player in the NHL, just ask anyone! Wait a second...if everyone agrees, then..."

It may be OK in poker to try calling someone's bluff with a bluff of your own, but it's pretty rude in real life.

I wish you'd be a bit more Columbo about this. You know, unfailingly polite, generous, but dogged to the end.

The comment you linked to doesn't seem like a clarifying question at all. I think that conversation might be another instance where your belligerent tone hurt communication even though your point was a valid one. Luke's answer didn't seem particularly defensive, either (although I have seen other conversations where his tone was defensive, so I won't challenge that point.)

I actually agree with you on this point (and upvoted all your questions about it), but the longer you argue the less sympathetic I'm getting. You asked when results would be published, and the answer was that it requires a lot of processing time. You asked if volunteers can help, and Luke answered that while volunteers can't help on that specifically, they can contribute to other things which will speed up the process. To which you answered:

I actually have no interest in supporting your research....I think your contributions are overrated.

Which just doesn't show a whole lot of interest in actually resolving the problem you're concerned about.

It should come as no surprise that I broadly support Silas' skepticism.

"I actually have no interest in supporting your research. "

Eliezer might have to defend the Golden Boy here. This takes issue with Eliezer's promotion of Luke.

"I think your contributions are overrated."

Ouch! Silas is bringing the bitch slap.

As such, their status seeking should be pointed out and skepticism should be attached to their future postings.

I object. "Lone wolves", and Silas in particular, are not more status seeking than average. Luke's contributions are far more status seeking than Silas's are. Luke is good at status seeking while Silas's biggest weakness is that he fails to status seek when it would clearly be in his interests to do so.

It lets the dissenters know that a community can tolerate and appreciate criticism but not the creation of a lone wolf character. Lone wolves do not contribute to a community and instead impede our advances in rationality by drawing conversations back to their status.

Let's taboo "lone wolf" and see what you actually mean by it, because I don't see Silas as a lone wolf figure in this debacle. For example, most of his comments have positive karma -- what I would consider a lone wolf wouldn't have such support.

Lone wolves do not contribute to a community

You think they don't contribute at all?