Different cultures have different notion of what's friendly behavior.
Yes. This is the point. If a there is a project to build a "Friendly" AI by a community that sees nothing wrong with gwern's behavior, then that is not a FAI that I want built.
You expect certain cultural customs to hold that you probably learned in the Social Justice warrior scene. Those customs don't hold in this community and that's why you behave in a way that get's you into this conflict where people vote down your posts a lot.
I feel that you are not listening to what I am saying. I think that I was quite clear in saying that gwern's behavior is contrary to what I consider to be entailed by the values that this community purports to have. A valid response to that is to claim that I have misunderstood what values this community purports to have. Another valid response is to say that gwern's behavior does not, in fact, violate those values. Saying that I am simply expecting people to follow a particular set of norms because those are the norms that have been inculcated in me from another community is not a valid response.
but part of being friendly usually means "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
And apparently, part of doing as the Romans do is not starting threads asking what the Romans do. Because that's "passive aggressive".
Well, I should seriously consider this point of view, try to figure out where this other person is coming from, and assume that they have good reason for believing it, even if it's not true.
As far as the IQ debate goes, of course a lot of people have a good reason for being critical of IQ. IQ suggests that people are somehow unequal and many people consider that to be unfair. Gwern isn't oblivious of that fact. He's rather overly optimistic about the prospect of convincing people by pointing them to the research.
It is quite unclear to me how you think that is a response to what you quoted.
Now, as for the statement that you quoted, is it uncivil to point out someone else's incivility?
Yes. It raises the emotional tension of the discussion in a way that not beneficial.
You have said that "sometimes" it's beneficial to call someone a liar. Yet you say that calling someone's behavior uncivil is not beneficial. And since you're saying that my behavior is uncivil, it follows that your behavior is also uncivil.
I don't see why it is not beneficial to mention when I am taking offense at something that someone said, and giving them an opportunity to correct it.
What is wrong with saying "If you can't act like a rationalist, then I'm going to conclude you're not a rationalist"?
A lot. To take the most obvious thing: You presume that gwern cares about whether you consider him to be a rationalist.
That is not an unreasonable inference, but I did not say that. Rather, I explained why I felt that gwern was not being rational, and provided an opportunity for gwern, if he so chose, to address that. Again, I note that this is an area where it is difficult to communicate an idea without unwanted implicatures. If I say "If you want me to respect you as a rationalist", people will take that as me arrogantly expecting that to be important to them. But that's not what I'm saying. I'm simply saying that I am finding a conclusion to be warranted from their words, and I am giving them an opportunity to correct that if they so choose. Whether it is important enough for them to correct it is completely up to them.
In the Social Justice community people care about whether other people see them as a "real feminist". We don't have something similar on LW.
Sure we do. The karma system exists purely to communicate how other posters feel about you.
I think that, generally speaking, it's rude to downvote someone without them knowing why you're downvoting them, and giving them an opportunity to correct it. I downvoted gwern, and I told him why. That's not "presuming" that gwern cares that I am downvoting him. If gwern doesn't care about my downvotes, then he can ignore my post. It's a bit odd that you're twisting my giving gwern an explanation of my downvotes into some sort of presumptive act. If my exlpaining the downvotes is presumptive, then surely the downvotes themselves are presumptive. So, are you saying that every time someone downvotes a post, they are presuming that the other person cares about their opinion?
I don't care how other people on LW mentally label me. I care whether or not other people interact with me in a way that provides utility to me
:sigh:
This getting rather tiresome.
If you care about how people interact with you, how can you possibly not care how people label you? Gwern's behavior was increasing my inclination to interact with him in a way that would likely provide less utility. I explained to gwern what this behavior was, and why it was having that effect. And you're objecting to that based on how I phrased it. Suppose, instead of saying ""If you can't have a calm, rational, and civil conversation about this, then I can only conclude that it you are not a rationalist.", I had said ""If you can't have a calm, rational, and civil conversation about this, then I will modify my behavior towards you in a manner likely to result in less utility towards you". Would that have avoided your opprobrium?
We don't use labels in a way to press obligations on other people and expect the people to fulfill the obligations to be worthy of the label.
That's not what I was was doing.
To gwern your posts suggested that you lack the mediocre amount of intelligence necessary to see A -> B or you do have the intelligence and pretend to not see A -> B to mess with him. That means the in his interpretation of the situation the two options are that you are either a idiot for failing to have the amount of intelligence to see A -> B or a troll for pretending to fail to see it.
To what does "A->B" refer to? Given that what I was confused about was that gwern said that the threat was a bluff, and then said that he had not said that, a more appropriate summary would be "A -> ~A". Gwern claimed that he thought his post was clear. Assuming that he wasn't lying, there are at least THREE explanations for why I was claiming to not understand it. One is that I am an idiot. Another is I was lying. And the third is ... it actually was not clear. The fact that gwern didn't even CONSIDER that possibility shows him to be an arrogant asshole. As I said, I got a third party to confirm that it was confusing. I was willing to consider the possibility that I was at fault. But gwern was not.
Is there anyone who thinks the post makes sense? And if so, are they willing to explain it?
He didn't call you a idiot or troll to make you feel bad but because those are the terms that accurately describe the situation he perceived to exist.
And what is the point of describing your hypotheses, if you have already foreclosed any possibility of updating away from it? When I described my belief that gwern was being anti-rational, I was doing so to provide him an opportunity to falsify the hypothesis.
It's more likely inferential distance given a different cultural background.
Like, what? Acquiring an idiolect that agrees with the acrolect on the meaning of the word "which"? That's the only hypothesis I can come up with.
Whenever you run a test and that test produces a number that number is a metric for what the test measures. That's a core basis on talking about measurements. Debating that fact is like debating whether 1+1=2.
But I never debated that.
And apparently, part of doing as the Romans do is not starting threads asking what the Romans do. Because that's "passive aggressive".
You started this thread with the title "Inquiry into community norms" yet you don't seem to be interested in learning what the community norms happen to be but want to argue that they are simply wrong and should be replaced what you are used to.
Pretending to do one thing while actually trying to do the other is what being passive aggressive is about.
...You have said that "sometimes" it's benef
Apparently, I am not entitled to be treated with basic civility. Or, at least, not according to gwern. It started when gwern wrote
>>All you're saying is that Saddam called the USA's bluff and was wrong and it was disastrous. That could EASILY have happened with an attempt by the US to demand inspections from Russia.
>Um, no, because the USSR had no reason to think and be correct in thinking it served a useful role for the USA which meant the threats were bluffs that were best ridden out lest it damage both allies' long-term goals.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/kfd/a_parable_of_elites_and_takeoffs/b1xz
I read this as saying the USSR should call the bluff, which made no sense in relation to gwern's other posts. When I asked whether this was actually what was intended, gwern got pissed off, insisted that there was no way a good faith reading could see the post as saying that, and accused me of deliberately misunderstanding. I have bent over backwards to resolve this civilly, but my repeated attempts to get gwern to explain how I had misunderstood the sentence achieved nothing but the accusation that I was making an “underhanded” effort to get gwern to respond. Despite not being willing to discuss the matter in *that* thread, gwern brought the matter up in a comment thread for a completely different article. Throughout our encounters, gwern has been incredibly rude, referring to me as an “idiot” and “troll” (rather hypocritical, given the ridiculously silly claims made by gwern, such as that "A, therefore, A" is not a circular argument), and generally treating me with an utter lack of respect. And in defense, gwern has pointed to high karma and being here a long time as making any accusation of inappropriate behavior “presumptuous”. Because apparently, the popular kids can't be criticized by mere common folk.
Looking at the stats, gwern is indeed the top recent contributor, which makes this behavior all the more worthy of comment. If some random poster were being rude, that would be worrisome, but the fact that the top contributor thinks that a high karma score is license to egregiously violate Wheton's rule suggests that there may be something wrong with the site as a whole.
EY has referred to a need to have this be a “Well-Kept Garden”. So I would like to know whether gwern's behavior is the sort of thing that people here think is acceptable in this garden.