= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Will_Newsome comments on How can we get more and better LW contrarians? - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (328)
I don't see a problem with driving "contrarians" away. That is what we should be doing.
To be a "contrarian" is to have written a bottom line already: disagree with everything everyone else agrees with.
To be a "contrarian" among smart people is to adopt reversed intelligence as a method of intelligence.
To be a "contrarian" among stupid people is, like American football, something that you have to be smart enough to do but stupid enough to think worth doing.
To be a "contrarian" is to limit oneself to writing against. I am not interested in what anyone is against until I have seen what they are for.
To be a "contrarian" is the safe and easy path. It is easy, because you can find good arguments against everything, as nothing is perfect. It is safe, for you can take agreement and disagreement alike as confirmation. Like most safe and easy paths, nothing is achieved along it.
To style oneself a "contrarian" is a giant red warning light that the person has nothing useful to say. That rule has not failed me yet.
This comment should have 99 upvotes and should be moved to "Main" as a separate article. Then we should link it whenever the same topic appears again.
Reversing group-think is like reversing stupidity, or like an underconfidence at group level. It can be done. It can be interesting. But I prefer reading rational people's best estimates of reality. And I prefer disagreement based on genuine experience and belief, not because someone has felt a duty to artificially maintain diversity.
If you disagree with whatever, for example many-worlds interpretation, say it. Say "I disagree because of X and Y". Or say "I disagree, because if feels wrong, and because many people disagree, including some experts in the field (which is a good Bayesian evidence)". That's all OK. But don't say or imply things like "we should attract more people who disagree with many-world interpretation, to keep our discussion balanced". That is manipulating evidence.
If anything, we should discuss wider range of topics. Then naturally we will attract people who agree with N-1 topics, and disagree with 1 topic; and they will say it, and we will know they mean it.