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ChristianKl comments on 2012 Less Wrong Census Survey: Call For Critiques/Questions - Less Wrong
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Given how people have been describing the basilisk to me in IRC and private messages as being a' fascinating secret' and 'attracting people with mystique' and 'laugh at how they circumvented the censorship', I think more people know about it than one would expect (and that by now, it is more well known than it ever would've been otherwise).
But even if all that was wrong, that is easily addressed with the usual options like 'Other' or 'No opinion' or 'Don't care'.
In the case that SI is in favor of the meme, doesn't believing in the meme means that you are bound to spread the meme? The meme had the danger of making LessWrong a lot more cultish.
Handling a dangerous meme in a way where people who come into contact with the meme don't focus their attention on the meme but laugh about the context of the meme is quite an accomplishment. It primes people for not taking it too seriously.
You wouldn't want the meme to become like Scientology's Xenu, which people actually start to buy into when they meet the meme after years in Scientology.
Er... what?
So making a bit of amusement is a satisfactory compensation for handing critics a club and also exposing countless more people, perhaps orders more, to it?
The meme has some self referential properties if you take it seriously.
Not every exposure is created equally. Exposing people to the idea in a way where they don't take it seriously doesn't do much harm.
Not every exposure is equal, but you've done nothing to show that censorship - in the hopes that it will result in mockery - will cut the risk by so many orders that it will more than counterbalance the orders more exposure and also pay for all the reputational damage.
In hindsight, clouds may have silver linings - but only an idiot tries to set up a mine in the sky.