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shminux comments on Inquiry into community standards - Less Wrong
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Comments (53)
This is really dismissive and, if I'm honest, I'm disappointed it's been upvoted so much. It's very convenient to say something like this and score points by signalling self-sacrificing stoicism and tough skin, and a lot less convenient to take the time to actually try looking for solutions or even just hold off from making dismissive comments.
I believe I remember when I hopped on #lesswrong (on which I've spent maybe between fifteen and ninety minutes' active time, so it's telling that this happened), and within a few minutes you'd complained to me (when I wasn't talking to you, if I recall correctly) about gwern not respecting others' norms or something. I didn't imply you were a crybaby or use my ignorance of your beef as an excuse to be Above It All. In fact, I made conscious effort to preempt my brain labelling it as 'weirdly outspoken whining' and to not be prejudicial in assessing what you'd said, but to treat it as a potentially legitimate complaint.
When someone is upset and potentially feels bullied by the community, telling them to deal with it as if they are inherently the problem by daring to rock the boat is unacceptable. It might be the case that they turn out to be in the wrong, but putting it like you've put it is basically never ever ever helpful and smacks of failure of consequentialism (only looking at whether gwern is net-positive, rather than if there are marginal improvements to be made).
If it's your honest belief that there is nothing that can be done and that this thread shouldn't have been made, there are much nicer, less dismissive, more effective ways of doing it, or actions you can take. For example, not commenting and moving on. Like seriously, if anybody should be above 'Stop rocking the boat', it should be LessWrongers, given how many of us have probably encountered that attitude dozens or hundreds of times in pursuit of truth or been bullied for being nerds, and how many of us have black belts in Social Justice theory (even those who have questioned or renounced that art). And if anybody should be above weird deontological rules like 'Don't criticize net-positive figures' or 'if u dont like it u can just leave', it should be people who pride themselves on clearheaded thinking.
Huh, this is one of the worst misinterpretations of my LW comment in a long time. I don't even know where to start, so I'll just express my general disappointment with it, downvote and move on.
I liked the part with weird deontological rules.
You more-or-less said, "gwern is imperfect but net-positive. So deal with it. Not everyone can be perfect.". I think such a response, in reply to someone who feels bullied by a senior members and worries the community is/will close ranks, is not the best course of action, and in fact is better off not being made. Even assuming your comment was not a deontological imperative, but rather a shorthand for a heuristic argument, I am very uncertain as to what heuristic you are suggesting and why you think it's a good heuristic.
Even if you ignored all that and rewrote your original comment differently, that might be sufficient to make headway.
Does that make things clearer? If this line of inquiry also seems too unweildy to begin replying to, can you go up meta levels and suggest a way to proceed?
I'll try one more time...
gwern is not a "senior member". He is not a moderator, as far as I know, though he did do some work for MIRI. He is a very prominent regular with superb research and analysis skills, quick wit, sharp tongue and occasionally bad attitude, apparently uninterested in applying the principle of charity. He's been told as much and was unwilling to acknowledge this as a problem.
Like on any forum, you don't have to engage everyone who replies to you. I ignore comments from a few regulars, some very active here, whom I have engaged in the past in repeated unproductive exchanges until I learned better. ThisSpaceAvailable should do likewise. This is basic internet hygiene. As long as the person you are unhappy to talk to does not run the place actively hounding you from thread to thread, downvoting and sniping, ignore them. If you feel that they break the forum rules, raise the issue with the mods. What ThisSpaceAvailable wrote comes across as drama-queening (an uncharitable term, but it fits in this case, hence all the downvotes of the OP). The very first sentence is an extreme put-off. Just now I have looked through the linked thread and my impression is that it's the OP who lost his cool. Anyway, I agree that my original reply could have been written in a more charitable way, but the point (a "heuristic", if you like) still stands: ignore those you don't like, unless they clearly break forum rules, or don't complain (or don't participate). It's not a "deontological imperative", more like common sense in online discourse.