The fact that we don't shoot each other literally and verbally is one thing that allows a website like LessWrong to exist.
The alternative would be splitting the website into dozen subsites: More Right, More Left, More Free, More Feminist, More Vegetarian, etc., which I suspect wouldn't remain rational for too long, although some of them might keep the word "rationality" as their local applause light.
Would that improve the world? My first guess is that these diverse websites would mostly cancel out each other, so the result would be zero. As an impact on their personal lives, they would probably spend less time studying, and more time inventing smart sounding political arguments. Which already other big parts of internet are doing, so they would be just another drop in the ocean.
Yes, here, where there is a sizable libertarian contingent, libertarians and progressives manage to be civil. And from my rationalist libertarian perspective, that's a good thing, and I wouldn't want it to change.
I don't think it's good to initiate force. I think peaceful truce's are good things.
But I wasn't addressing the situation at LW, I was addressing the broader context where rationalist libertarians are taking bullets, but not returning fire. I consider pacifism a loser of a strategy. A better strategy, IMO, is some kind of proportionate tit for ta...
Scott, known on LessWrong as Yvain, recently wrote a post complaining about an inaccurate rape statistic.
Arthur Chu, who is notable for winning money on Jeopardy recently, argued against Scott's stance that we should be honest in arguments in a comment thread on Jeff Kaufman's Facebook profile, which can be read here.
Scott just responded here, with a number of points relevant to the topic of rationalist communities.
I am interested in what LW thinks of this.
Obviously, at some point being polite in our arguments is silly. I'd be interested in people's opinions of how dire the real world consequences have to be before it's worthwhile debating dishonestly.