dbaupp comments on Help! Name suggestions needed for Rationality-Inst! - Less Wrong
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Why is Less Wrong against humor? I am all for being professional - if all you are looking for his humor then you can go to reddit or something - but why should we be actively discouraging people from being funny at all? I've seen this in other communities, too. As much respect as I have for Eliezer (which is a lot), people tend to get all emotionally attached to the "hero" of their community/movement, and suddenly it becomes not ok to joke about the authorities or otherwise hint anything negative about them at all. Doesn't go well with your whole "we're not a cult" thing. Just saying.
Err... It's not. I have seen a few comments where people have lamented the fact that their most upvoted (by far) comment ever was a light-hearted joke, rather than one with some deep insight or otherwise useful contribution.
I didn't downvote, but I don't think people were necessarily downvoting because the names mildly insulted Eliezer. I'm guessing that just didn't think they were very good names for an organisation attempting to improve the rationality of humanity. (e.g. the second one relates to AI far more than rationality.)
I'm not complaining about the downvotes, maybe people just didn't think it was funny. I was just responding to the attitude Konkvistador expressed above (which is getting upvoted). So I'm not addressing something that doesn't exist.
I think you need to read this thread.