By listing people who would be downvoted as though it is a significant fact it implies that they have status such that they deserve to be mentioned in that context.
The suggestion was to get feedback from experts on matters of rationality. I listed some people and listed some possible reactions. This doesn't imply that I believe that those people are actually worthy of being asked or that the reactions would be unjustified.
There are various problems, 1.) there are not many people that are on the same level as LW 2.) a lot of those people who are not part of the "SIAI memeplex", as Luke called it, actually disagree on important issues 3.) there is a lack of critical examination and debate with those that are critical of SI key positions. Especially #3 tends to be problematic as disagreement is often met with the mentioned reactions, which doesn't imply that the reactions are not justified, but unhelpful.
The fact that someone is actually worthy of downvotes has rather significant implications on whether or not motivated cognition must be involved in the downvoting.
I never said that there is any motivated cognition involved in the downvoting of people on LW. I said that people on LW are sometimes claiming that their opponents disagreement is caused by motivated cognition, that the people who disagree with LW are often disagreeing due to motivated cognition.
To summarize: a place to receive feedback on issues of rationality from outsiders wouldn't work out in my opinion as long as the people on LW are not willing to dissolve the disagreement but rather tend to ignore or simply downvote their opponents because they are perceived to be stupid etc. (which might very well be justified).
Upvoting and agreeing.
This is more about LW in general, than to Luke personally, but I do feel that this site has a strong "cult" feel to it. I think there are a lot of things that rational people might disagree with LW consensus on, and instead of welcoming non-LW ideas, people say that they aren't rational.
For example, I think that if 500 people all thought about AI and FAI rationally and independently, they wouldn't all just happen to come to the exact same conclusions considering that there are so many unknowns. But the group-think here is such that anyone with a differing opinion is kept out. I am actually thinking about making a post on this, but we'll see how busy I am.
Eliezer once told me:
If there's one rationality skill I like to think I'm pretty good at, it's this one: the skill of saying "Oops."
In fact, I say "Oops, fixed, thanks" so often on Less Wrong I once suggested I should have a shortcut for it: "OFT."
And I don't just say "oops" for typos and mistakes in tone, but also for mistakes in my facts and arguments.
It's not that I say "oops" every time I'm challenged at length, either. I don't say "oops" until I actually think I was significantly wrong; otherwise, I stand my ground and ask for better counter-arguments.
But I'm sure I can improve.
Wanna help me debug my own mind?
Tell me: On which issues do you think I most obviously still need to say "Oops"?