EDIT: This reply applies to a previous version of the parent. I'm not sure whether it applies to the current version since just a glance at the new bulleted list was too much.

From my perspective, what I did was to hypothesize that you had the motive to do good but wrong beliefs.

Yes, were I to have actually objected in this manner to you comment I clearly would have objected to the attribution of "false beliefs result in <badness of some kind>" based on untenable mind-reading and not "sinister motives". You will note that Vladimir referred to both. As it happens I was not executing punishment of either kind and so chose to discuss insinuation of false motives rather than insinuation of toxic beliefs because objecting to the former was the stance I had already taken recently and is the one most significantly objectionable.

You will note that "punishment" here refers to nothing more than labeling a thing and saying it is undesirable. In recent context it refers to the following, in response to some rather... dramatic and inflammatory motives:

That's an untenable interpretation of the written words and plain rude. (Claiming to have) mind read negative beliefs and motives in others then declaring them publicly tends to be frowned upon. Certainly it is frowned upon by me.

I do endorse such a response. It is a straightforward and rather clearly explained assertion of boundaries. Yes, a technical analysis of the social implications makes such boundary assertion and the labeling of behaviors as 'rude' entails a form of 'punishment'.

This is an (arguably) nuanced and low level analysis of how social behaviors work and I note that by the same analysis your own comments tend to be heavily riddled with both punishments and threats. Since this is an area where you use words differently and tend to make objections in response to low level analysis I will note explicitly that under more typical definitions of 'punishment' that would not describe your behavior as frequently having the social implication of punishment I would also reject that word applying to most of what I do.

You said you didn't punish me in this instance but that you would endorse doing so, and I bet that many of the people you did punish are in the same bewildered position of wondering what they did to deserve it

I assert that there is no instance where I have 'punished' people for accusing me of believing things or having motives that I do not have where I have not been abundantly clear about what I am objecting to. Because not only is this not something that comes up frequently the punishment consists of nothing more than the explanation itself. This can plausibly be described as 'punishment' in as much as it entails providing potentially negative utility in response to undesired stimulus but if that punishment is recognized as punishment then the meaning is already clear.

Your frequent refusals to explain your beliefs and motives when asked

No Wei. I give an excessive amount of explanation of motives. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if I provide more and more detailed explanations of this kind than anyone on the site---partly because I comment frequently but mostly because such things happen to be of abstract decision theoretical interest to me. Once again, I don't like being forced into a corner where I have to speak plainly about something some would take personally but you really seem set on pushing the issue here. I have already explained in this thread:

Another good reason would be that I find arguing with you about what posts should be made to be both fruitless and unpleasant. I find that the difference in preferences, assumptions and beliefs constitute an inferential distance that does not seem to be successfully crossed---I don't find I learn anything from your exhortations and don't expect to convince you of anything either. Note that I applied rudimentary tact and mentioned only the contextual reason because no matter how many caveats I include it is always going to come across as more personal and rude than I intend to be (where that intent would be the minimum possible given significant disagreement).

"The definition of insanity" may be hyperbole but it remains the case that doing the same thing again and again while expecting different results is foolish. I sincerely believe that explanations to you specifically have next to no chance of achieving a desired goal and that giving them to you will continue to be detrimental to me, as I have found it to be in the past. For example the parent primes people to apply interpretations to my comments that I consider ridiculous. All your other comments in this thread can be presumed to have some influence in that direction as well, making it more difficult to make people correctly interpret my words in the future and generally interfering with my ability to communicate successfully. If I didn't reply to you I would not have given you a platform from which to speak and influence others. You would have just been left with your initial comment and if you had kept making comments like "Non-explanatory punisher!" without me engaging you would have just looked like a stalker.

Anyhow it would seem that my unfortunate bias to explain myself when it would be more rational to ignore has struck again.

I'm saying that I can't think of any reasons, including subconscious reasons, why I might want to do it harm. It seems compatible with your words that I have no conscious reasons but do have subconscious reasons.

I suspect his point is that if you misunderstand the dynamics of the system, then you can both have the best motives and the worst consequences.

The difference needn't lie in your motives, conscious or unconscious. You might simply have bad theories about how groups develop. (A possibility: your tendency to understate the role of social signaling in what sometimes pretends to be an objective search for truth.)

But your blindness to potential motives is also problematic--and not just because of the motives themselves, if they exist. For an example of a motive, you might have an anti-E.Y. motive because he hasn't taken your ideas on the Singularity as seriously as you think they deserve--giving much more attention to a hack job from GiveWell.

Well, you wanted a possible example. There are always possible examples.

I'm saying that I can't think of any reasons, including subconscious reasons, why I might want to do it harm. It seems compatible with your words that I have no conscious reasons but do have subconscious reasons.

Let it be known that I, Wedrifid, at this time and at this electronic location do declare that I do not believe that Wei Dai has conscious or unconscious motives to sabotage lesswrong. Indeed the thought is so bizarre and improbable that it was never even considered as a possibility by my search algorithm until Wei brought it up.

It really seems much more likely to me that Wei really did think that chastising those who tried to prevent the feeding of Dmytry was going to help the website rather than damage it. I also believe that Wei Dai declaring war on "Fictional" as a response to "What do you call the Joker?" is based on a true, sincere and evidently heartfelt belief that the world would be a better place without "fictional" (or analogous answers) as a reply in similar contexts.

Enemies are almost never innately evil. (Another probably necessary caveat: That word selection is merely a reference to a post that contains the relevant insight. Actual enemy status is not something to be granted so frivolously. Actively considering agents enemies rather than merely obstacles involves a potentially significant trade-off when it comes to optimization and resource allocation and so is best reserved for things that really matter.)