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Konkvistador comments on [Link] More Right launched - Less Wrong
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Sorry, Gwern is right. I would comment there, and I know that you have indeed been looking forward to my input in particular, and might even fast-track my letters due to having confidence that I make for an interesting opponent... but even with all that, the entry barrier is too damn high!
You're basically inviting me to write short but reasonably complete essays in which I'd have to cover the inferential distance from the opposite end of the ideological spectrum... explain where exactly I agree or disagree with your criticisms of the dominant liberal worldview... figure out how much I should adjust for Least Convenient Possible World and whether it'd make sense for me to concede some claims outright... provide an introduction to some schools of thought which a right-wing audience might've never encountered outside of a strawmanned pop-culture form [1] (and which even the MoreRight authors likely misunderstand in some subtle but crucial ways, as has been my impression whenever I tried to talk feminism with you)... explain why I think such traditions might have an advantage over an epistemic-learned-helplessness defense of conservative liberalism... provide such a defense where I feel I'm not learned enough or don't have a leg to stand on but still find the right-wing argument awful...
Shit, I've got a .txt file open right now with a Frankenstein's monster of a long comment intended to attack the neo-reactionary ideology with regards to issues of structural power and social dominance... epistemology and the biases/rationalizations caused by privilege (building on a "cheap shot" about your pals all being straight white tech-minded guys, having at least modest economic security, living in modern liberal democracies and communicating freely in a de facto libertarian-socialist network)... the way historical narratives are formed and how they relate to social psychology/self-image/intergroup relations (re: all conservative talk of a Relatively-Golden-Age)...
You might see where I'm going with this - or, rather, where I'd like to go. Been trying to hammer it into something at least comment-worthy, but the ideological challenges I see here are all interconnected and would all benefit from an optimized presentation... so it grows endlessly, and whichever angle I start shoring up, it ties into other perspectives and considerations...
And I would imagine that people who don't care much about such overarching socio-politico-epistemic ways of thought, and just wish to rebutt your criticisms of Modernity from a normal liberal/socialist/libertarian perspective, would get scared off too. High expectations for quality and tone + large inferential distances + restrictions of the medium + a potentially uncharitable reader base = ???
Frankly, I'm going to be surprised if you get to publish any substantial non-right-wing critical commentary from anyone other than Yvain. And that's only because he's already publicly undertaking such a challenge on his blog. Oh, well, and maybe TGGP. Can't imagine anyone else in the LW-sphere who'd brave all that time and effort.
1] Suggested mental exercise for the reader: attempt to briefly illustrate how the socioeconomic views of Ayn Rand and G.K. Chesterton, respectively, could be considered as being relatively closer to, and farther from, the worldview of Karl Marx. If you're feeling puzzled by the suggestion... well, I'm reasonably confident that your cached picture of Marx is an useless straw one. Here, for example, I cleared up just one particularly egregious bit. (A wealth of further reading.)
I am just asking people to use their email client rather than their browser to write comments. And in a regular open thread they can write comments in the way they are used to when they primarily seek interaction with other readers or off topic discussion.
You underestimate how much nonrightwing people would be scared off by an actual right wing comment section. We are not therefore discussing expectations of quality or moderation here but only the trivial inconvenience of emailing them in.
I suspect your and gwerns comments are getting a lot of upvotes because of Far mode considerations and vague feelings of goodness around open discussion. Let me push that into Near mode and explain why unmoderated comments where never an option on the table. I very much expect that sooner or later we would end up at best with Unqualified Reservation's comment section or at worst with that of Alternative Right's. First I encourage the reader who is unfamiliar with them to google up both. Now tell me how many non right wing rationalists would comment there no matter how reasonable or interesting a hypotheticl article by an author?
The filter of moderation may keep interesting some comments at bay but eliminates far more of mindless politicking than pf the former. Ultimately that ratio is what I think matters.
This is easily checked, isn't it? I propose that you keep the current policy for a month, then switch to regular pre-moderated blog comments for a month.
For example - and sorry for descending to object-level current politics- I wanted to reply to Mike's off-hand mention of Putin as a successful and efficient modern authoritarian ruler with something along the lines of:
"Goddamnit, I actually live here, and I get to see the bureaucracy paralyzed with nepotism and corruption, the unsustainable loot-n-run resource-extracting economy, the barely functional public sector under perpetual directionless reform, the brewing sense of anger and despair due to social inequality, the uncontrollable and semi-criminal repressive apparatus, the growing cultural and ethnic rifts destroying what sense of shared identity us "Russians" had remaining..."
Yet such a simple listing of complaints about Mike's characterization doesn't feel like enough to fire up an email for, and I don't feel like going deeper into it. Would you view something like this as even marginally useful input?
Of course I agree that unmoderated comments would be a clusterfuck. Don't think anyone was suggesting otherwise.
Moldbug did that to himself by not bothering to moderate any comments, even to remove Chinese goldfarming and Viagra spam.
"Want to see amateurs in home-made crowns pretend to open kindergartens? barelyregal.com" - some commenter there.
/checks site, is disappointed does not exist
http://xkcd.com/305/
And of course, http://www.wetriffs.com/ (gallery ~NSFW) - but it's really stagnated these past few years. Guess it wasn't as hot as it seemed.
/is amused to note one LWer among the pics
Please reread the comment you replied to.
Feel free to explain. I've read Unqualified Reservations. I've read it for years. The comment section went downhill the moment Moldbug decreed he would no longer read or reply it and stopped even bothering spam filtering. All that shows is zero moderation and no karma system of any kind doesn't work - which I don't think anyone here would be terribly surprised by or was arguing for.
I was making the point that no moderation us terrible. With the implicit point that there isn't much difference between moderated comments and emailed in comments. See Larry Austers blog for an example (warning I don't agree with his positions).
Which is stupid, and I refer you to my original comment, and particularly encourage you to re-read all articles and comments mentioning 'trivial inconveniences'.
There is, there really is. I don't mind at all posting a comment and accepting moderation, but I won't email anything to you. You can choose to be stubborn about accepting such a fact or you may not.
So you are saying there is a great difference? Very well I accept that tho the reason for the difference illudes me. This makes me more interested in the outcome of email only than before.
I can understand not wanting to write a long, well-thought out comment that might never be seen by most of the intended audience.