. — LessWrong

drethelin15y160

I think it's a bad idea to say this every time a new discussion about sex/gender comes up. If each time such a post is made, someone posts "there is no way this will go well" and everyone stops posting, then it is literally impossible for the conversation to go anywhere. I think it's much more valuable to have bad posts if those enable good posts to also exist, instead of just having no posts on the topic.

At the very least, wait UNTIL the thread descends into shittiness, and then lock it, instead of preemptively banning on all conversation on a subject that is vitally important to the happiness of many.

lessdazed15y00

lock it

Bad idea. That's never been worth it for any thread I've seen.

8wedrifid15y

We don't lock threads at all, as far as I'm aware. Delete them sure. Swear and abuse those who post them perhaps but never lock them.

17Vladimir_M15y

I disagree with this assumption. Discussions can have a net negative contribution to knowledge and understanding even if all their parts aren't uniformly negative. It seems to me that this is especially true on LW, since as long as there is no breakdown of discussion and everything looks nice and polite, people here tend to walk away believing that they've just participated in a sterling exercise in rationality and clear thinking, even if it's actually been a bad death spiral. That's my opinion, at least.