John_Maxwell_IV comments on How can we get more and better LW contrarians? - Less Wrong
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If we have less contrarianism than is optimal, it seems like the root of the problem is that people often vote for agreement rather than for expected added value. I would start looking there for a solution.
Also, the site would be able to absorb more contrarians if their bad contributions didn't cause as much damage. It would help if we exercised better judgment in deciding when a criticism is worth engaging with and when we should just stop feeding the trolls.
Change the mouseovers on the thumbs-up/thumbs-down icons from "Vote up"/"Vote down" to "More like this"/"Less like this". I've suggested this before and it got upvotes, I suggest now it might be time to implement it.
I think this would discourage me from writing contrary stuff. Right now if I get voted down, I explain it to myself as me having an unpopular but possibly correct opinion. Hearing that people want "less like this" seems harsh somehow.
This is the pro-airbrushing argument; airbrushing in magazines decreases body neurosis because it gives girls plausible deniability for why they don't look like models.
I saw this not to pass judgement either way on your argument.
Does airbrushing actually work to decrease body neurosis? My impression is that it doesn't. However, mannikins seem to cause less damage, possibly because they're less realisitic looking.
Isn't that the point? A stimuli that is insufficiently strong to change behavior is pointless to use for behavior modification.