The reputational damage to Less Wrong has been done. Is there really anything to be gained by flipping moderation policy?

The basilisk is now being linked on Marginal Revolution. Estimated site traffic: >3x gwern.net; per above, that is >16k uniques daily to the site.

What site will be next?

The reputational damage to Less Wrong has been done. Is there really anything to be gained by flipping moderation policy?

There's now the impression that a community of aspiring rationalists — or, at least, its de-facto leaders — are experiencing an ongoing lack of clue on the subject of the efficacy of censorship on online PR.

The "reputational damage" is not just "Eliezer or LW have this kooky idea."

It is "... and they think there is something to be gained by shutting down discussion of this kooky idea, when others' experience (Streisand Effect, DeCSS, etc.) and their own (this very thread) are strong evidence to the contrary."

It is the apparent failure to update — or to engage with widely-recognized reality at all — that is the larger reputational damage.

It is, for that matter, the apparent failure to realize that saying "Don't talk about this because it is bad PR" is itself horrible PR.

The idea that LW or its leadership dedicate nontrivial attention to encircling and defending against this kooky idea makes it appear that the idea is central to LW. Some folks on the thread on Stross's forum seem to think that Roko discovered the hidden secret motivating MIRI! That's bogus ... but there's a whole trope of "cults" suppressing knowledge of their secret teachings; someone who's pattern-matched LW or transhumanism onto "cult" will predictably jump right there.

At this point, let's not taunt people with the right kind of mental pathology to be made very uncomfortable by the basilisk or meta-set of basilisks.

My own take on the whole subject is that basilisk-fear is a humongous case of privileging the hypothesis coupled to an anxiety loop. But ... I'm rather prone to anxiety loops myself, albeit over matters a little more personal and less abstract. The reason not to poke people with Roko's basilisk is that doing so a form of aggression — it makes (some) people unhappy.

But as far as I can tell, it's no worse in that regard than a typical Iain M. Banks novel, or some of Stross's own ideas for that matter ... which are considered entertainment. Which means ... humans eat "basilisks" like this for dessert. In one of Banks's novels, multiple galactic civilizations invent uploading, and use it to implement their religions' visions of Hell, to punish the dead and provide an incentive to the living to conform to moral standards.

(But then, I read Stross and Banks. I don't watch gore-filled horror movies, though, and I would consider someone forcing me to watch such a movie would be doing aggression against me. So I empathize with those who are actually distressed by the basilisk idea, or the "basilisk" idea for that matter.)

I have to say, I find myself feeling worse for Eliezer than for anyone else in this whole affair. Whatever else may be going on here, having one's work cruelly mischaracterized and held up to ridicule is a whole bunch of no fun.

The reputational damage to Less Wrong has been done. Is there really anything to be gained by flipping moderation policy?

Answering the rhetorical question because the obvious answer is not what you imply [EDIT: I notice that J Taylor has made a far superior reply already]: Yes, it limits the ongoing reputational damage.

I'm not arguing with the moderation policy. But I will argue with bad arguments. Continue to implement the policy. You have the authority to do so, Eliezer has the power on this particular website to grant that authority, most people don't care enough to argue against that behavior (I certainly don't) and you can always delete the objections with only minimal consequences. But once you choose to make arguments that appeal to reason rather than the preferences of the person with legal power then you can be wrong.

At this point, let's not taunt people with the right kind of mental pathology to be made very uncomfortable by the basilisk or meta-set of basilisks.

I've had people come to me who are traumatised by basilisk considerations. From what I can tell almost all of the trauma is attributable to Eliezer's behavior. The descriptions of the experience give clear indications (ie. direct self reports that are coherent) that a significant reason that they "take the basilisk seriously" is because Eliezer considers it a sufficiently big deal that he takes such drastic and emotional action. Heck, without Eliezer's response it wouldn't even have earned that title. It'd be a trivial backwater game theory question to which there are multiple practical answers.

So please, just go back to deleting basilisk talk. That would be way less harmful than trying to persuade people with reason.

At this point, let's not taunt people with the right kind of mental pathology to be made very uncomfortable by the basilisk or meta-set of basilisks.

As far as I can tell the entire POINT of LW is to talk about various mental pathologies and how to avoid them or understand them even if they make you very uncomfortable to deal with or acknowledge. The reasons behind talking about the basilisk or basilisks in general (apart from metashit about censorship) are just like the reasons for talking about trolley problems even if they make people angry or unhappy. What do you do when your moral intuitions seem to break down? What do you do about compartmentalization or the lack of it? Do you bite bullets? Maybe the mother should be allowed to buy acid.

To get back to meta shit: If people are complaining about the censorship and you are sick of the complaints, the simplest way to stop them is to stop the censorship. If someone tells you there's a problem, the response of "Quit your bitching, it's annoying" is rarely appropriate or even reasonable. Being annoying is the point of even lameass activism like this. I personally think any discussion of the actual basilisk has reached every conclusion it's ever really going to reach by now, pretty reasonably demonstrated by looking at the uncensored thread, and the only thing even keeping it in anyone's consciousness is the continued ballyhooing about memetic hazards.

The reputational damage to Less Wrong has been done. Is there really anything to be gained by flipping moderation policy?

I hate to use silly symmetrical rhetoric, however:

The secret has been leaked and the reputational damage is ongoing. Is there really anything to be gained by continuing the current moderation policy?

The meta discussions will continue until morale improves