AlexMennen comments on New censorship: against hypothetical violence against identifiable people - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 December 2012 09:00PM

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Comment author: AlexMennen 24 December 2012 01:06:43AM 17 points [-]

I support censorship, but only if it is based on the unaccountable personal opinion of a human. Anything else is too prone to lost purposes. If a serious rationalist (e.g. EY) seriously thinks about it and decides that some post has negative utility, I support its deletion. If some unintelligent rule like "no hypothetical violence" decides that a post is no good, why should I agree? Simple rules do not capture all the subtlety of our values; they cannot be treated as Friendly.

It makes sense to have mod discretion, but it also makes sense to have a list of rules that the mods can point to so that people whose posts get censored are less likely to feel that they are being personally targeted.

Comment author: [deleted] 24 December 2012 01:23:36AM 10 points [-]

Yes. Explanatory rules are good. Letting the rules drive is not.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 December 2012 02:17:54AM 16 points [-]

These are explanations, not rules, check.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 24 December 2012 05:10:10AM 2 points [-]

Hence "may at the admins' option be censored"