How can we get more and better LW contrarians?

Wei Dai

I'm worried that LW doesn't have enough good contrarians and skeptics, people who disagree with us or like to find fault in every idea they see, but do so in a way that is often right and can change our minds when they are. I fear that when contrarians/skeptics join us but aren't "good enough", we tend to drive them away instead of improving them.

For example, I know a couple of people who occasionally had interesting ideas that were contrary to the local LW consensus, but were (or appeared to be) too confident in their ideas, both good and bad. Both people ended up being repeatedly downvoted and left our community a few months after they arrived. This must have happened more often than I have noticed (partly evidenced by the large number of comments/posts now marked as written by [deleted], sometimes with whole threads written entirely by deleted accounts). I feel that this is a waste that we should try to prevent (or at least think about how we might). So here are some ideas:

Try to "fix" them by telling them that they are overconfident and give them hints about how to get LW to take their ideas seriously. Unfortunately, from their perspective such advice must appear to come from someone who is themselves overconfident and wrong, so they're not likely to be very inclined to accept the advice.
Create a separate section with different social norms, where people are not expected to maintain the "proper" level of confidence and niceness (on pain of being downvoted), and direct overconfident newcomers to it. Perhaps through no-holds-barred debate we can convince them that we're not as crazy and wrong as they thought, and then give them the above-mentioned advice and move them to the main sections.
Give newcomers some sort of honeymoon period (marked by color-coding of their usernames or something like that), where we ignore their overconfidence and associated social transgressions (or just be extra nice and tolerant towards them), and take their ideas on their own merits. Maybe if they see us take their ideas seriously, that will cause them to reciprocate and take us more seriously when we point out that they may be wrong or overconfident.

I guess these ideas sounded better in my head than written down, but maybe they'll inspire other people to think of better ones. And it might help a bit just to keep this issue in the back of one's mind and occasionally think strategically about how to improve the person you're arguing against, instead of only trying to win the particular argument at hand or downvoting them into leaving.

P.S., after writing most of the above, I saw this post:

OTOH, I don’t think group think is a big problem. Criticism by folks like Will Newsome, Vladimir Slepnev and especially Wei Dai is often upvoted. (I upvote almost every comment of Dai or Newsome if I don’t forget it. Dai makes always very good points and Newsome is often wrong but also hilariously funny or just brilliant and right.) Of course, folks like this Dymytry guy are often downvoted, but IMO with good reason.

To be clear, I don't think "group think" is the problem. In other words, it's not that we're refusing to accept valid criticisms, but more like our group dynamics (and other factors) cause there to be fewer good contrarians in our community than is optimal. Of course what is optimal might be open to debate, but from my perspective, it can't be right that my own criticisms are valued so highly (especially since I've been moving closer to the SingInst "inner circle" and my critical tendencies have been decreasing). In the spirit of making oneself redundant, I'd feel much better if my occasional voice of dissent is just considered one amongst many.

Try to "fix" them by telling them that they are overconfident and give them hints about how to get LW to take their ideas seriously. Unfortunately, from their perspective such advice must appear to come from someone who is themselves overconfident and wrong, so they're not likely to be very inclined to accept the advice.
Create a separate section with different social norms, where people are not expected to maintain the "proper" level of confidence and niceness (on pain of being downvoted), and direct overconfident newcomers to it. Perhaps through no-holds-barred debate we can convince them that we're not as crazy and wrong as they thought, and then give them the above-mentioned advice and move them to the main sections.
Give newcomers some sort of honeymoon period (marked by color-coding of their usernames or something like that), where we ignore their overconfidence and associated social transgressions (or just be extra nice and tolerant towards them), and take their ideas on their own merits. Maybe if they see us take their ideas seriously, that will cause them to reciprocate and take us more seriously when we point out that they may be wrong or overconfident.

P.S., after writing most of the above, I saw this post:

OTOH, I don’t think group think is a big problem. Criticism by folks like Will Newsome, Vladimir Slepnev and especially Wei Dai is often upvoted. (I upvote almost every comment of Dai or Newsome if I don’t forget it. Dai makes always very good points and Newsome is often wrong but also hilariously funny or just brilliant and right.) Of course, folks like this Dymytry guy are often downvoted, but IMO with good reason.

You read Steve's comment reply to you, right?

If I recall, I read it, found it naive and surprisingly superficial, downvoted and even replied.

I really don't think XiXiDu's self-characterizations are a reliable indicator of XiXiDu's actual drives.

Self-characterizations are seldom reliable, but when they match observed behavior it is significant evidence. More to the point, the benefit of the doubt that people 'mean well' is undermined when their explicitly endorsed motives are also considered undesirable.

I think you're being unduly harsh on XiXiDu for political reasons

The subject is rather political - and given the only loose relevance to the subject you were explaining to me I don't have a reliable model of why you would choose to bring it up with a political assertion that I would clearly reject out of hand. Other parts of your point and even other applications we could have agreed upon.

I also think Eliezer's bias to interpret his enemies as innately evil and/or stupid is evil & stupid—I hope that it hasn't rubbed off on you,

And right here is one reason that makes me tempted to say we need new and better contrarians. Because it is utterly bizarre that I end up on a 'side' that leaves some people characterizing me as an Eliezer fanboy. I'm far more contrarian that I really ought to be and oppose Eliezer far more than most (hey - I do most things here more than most). The fact that I oppose (perceived) fools who corrupt the epistemic commons with highly undesirable practices and that by default such individuals take out their angst on Eliezer by no means makes me his acolyte.

If we had more contrarians that were remotely sane then perhaps I could avoid appearing to be more or less mainstream (a position I'm rather unfamiliar with).

I'm not sure about the whole 'innately evil' thing by the way. I can't speak for Eliezer but for my part XiXiDu strikes me as merely the enemy of that which I am trying to protect (that is, my personal haven of at least tolerable levels of discussion standards). I actually think I'd get along well with him in person. He's been up front with me even when he has opposed me or expressed his anger personally. I find that pleasant to deal with. I'd play board games with him (pretty much my primary standard of evaluating people). I just don't want his influence here. (This doesn't extend to all that pass for 'contrarians'. Many others have personality traits that I don't get along well with in person either.)

and that your agreement with him here is due to contingent personal factors.

Almost certainly. Selection effects and all.

Politics is hard, let's go shopping.

Sure, until the next time politics gets brought up. Or until the next time I choose to respond to evangelism of Catholisism or demonic UFOs with verbal disapproval.

(You seem to have misinterpreted me (my intentions) on a few (relatively minor) points (which is probably why you don't have a reliable model). Not worth getting into, just thought I should flag it for purposes of calibration.

And yeah, I also wouldn't be as tempted to go out of my way to (correctly or incorrectly) defend XiXiDu's (alleged) motivations if we had more/better contrarians.)

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How can we get more and better LW contrarians?

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