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Punoxysm comments on Open thread, September 22-28, 2014 - Less Wrong
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I was pondering the whole mass-downvote kerfuffle a while back, and even though I generally agree with the end result from gut instinct reasoning, I'm struck by the following:
The downvoter had an objective, and rationally used the tool of downvoting to achieve it rather than constraining himself arbitrarily. If HPJEV were a forum-dweller instead of a wizard, he would do the very same.
Rationality is about going down winning road and accurately predicting the consequences of your actions. Punishment creates deterrence for rational actors.
Eugine very likely made wrong predictions over the results of his actions.
I also have an objective. My objective is this: At least somewhere on the internet, there should exist a community where people can have real discussion, ie, a dispassionate exchange of priors, likelihood ratios and arguments. It will not be possible for me to achieve my objective if participants turn discussions into wars. It will also not work if people with certain views feel unwelcome, or scared to vocalize their views.
Yes, he may have been acting rationally, in the same way that somebody who defects in Prisoner's Dilemma acts rationally. In fact, it would be rational for anyone to use unacceptable tactics in order for their side to "win" the discussion. However, the continued existence of Less Wrong as a rationalist community depends on people cooperating in this game. Moloch will certainly kill the rationalist spirit if we don't punish defectors.
Sometimes it is rational to punish defectors even if the defectors themselves are acting rationally. I do however understand that this is a difficult trade-off, as we have seen strong evidence that there are people who are willing to participate and have high-quality insights that are not easily obtained elsewhere, but who refuse to play by the rules.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-community-and-civilization/
It is not at all clear that Eugine achieved his objective. One thing he certainly achieved was to get kicked ignominiously out of the Less Wrong community, which I'm guessing wasn't an objective. (though I have seen speculation that he has returned under a different name).
Which doesn't mean that the new account doesn't also get deleted and we will be more careful the next time around. It's just that processes on LW take time.
For the avoidance of doubt, I agree and wasn't at all intending to suggest that if Eugine is back then kicking him out didn't accomplish anything, or that if he's back and behaving in the same way that got him thrown out the first time it's in any way worrying that he hasn't been re-expelled yet.
(I do think that if it turns out he's back and doing the same things that got him thrown out before, the moderators should dial up the disincentives this time around. Block LW access from his IP address, reverse every vote he ever cast, that sort of thing.)
Back in days where I was moderating a forum, rebanning a reregistered person might have taken a week and not months. Given the amount of time I spent on LW I wouldn't have expected that it takes me that long but then I'm not thinking anymore with the moderator hat.
That doesn't accomplish anything given the availability of proxies. Expect maybe being an insult in his perceived lack of IT knowledge.
That needs someone to write the necessary code.
I'm all for insulting people who abuse the system :-). And for putting trivial inconveniences in their way, if nontrivial ones are too difficult.
And presumably, indeed, reversing all someone's votes isn't currently supported by whatever LW admin tools there are, and implementing that feature would be a non-negligible cost to weigh against the ability to disincentivize abuse in that way.
(For the avoidance of ambiguity: I meant "undo", not "reverse the sign of". It would be quite amusing to reverse the sign of all someone's votes as a punishment for abuse, but I can think of more than one reason why it probably wouldn't be a good idea.)
People switching IP addresses makes it harder to track that they are reregistering, so it's usually no smart move to force this behavior.
Like an amoral capitalist, he revealed flaws in our moderation system that really ought to be addressed in a less ad-hoc way.
Exactly what I'm saying. Don't know who would downvote you for that!
I didn't downvote, but I can see downvoting for bringing in a larger political issue.
See also: Like an amoral politician, he revealed flaws in our moderation system that really ought to be addressed in a less ad-hoc way.
Well no, because I doubt he'd share the downvoter's objective. (I assume. I wasn't following the kerfuffle.) To conclude that he would, you have to transplant his methods onto a forum setting but not his goals. Which is a weird level to model at.
orthogonality?
Given the strong ethical view that HPJEV takes of lying, that would be grossly against his character. He might also say, as would I, that it's a short step from mass downvoting to what Yvain reports here.
I see a qualitative difference between mass downvoting and malicious impersonation--- malicious impersonation is a much stronger effort to damage reputation. Mass downvoting is a way of saying "this person is disliked", while malicious impersonation is supplying false evidence that the person is detestable.
Well, HPJEV's ethics are wildly inconsistent moment-to-moment, so...
Examples?
I think the clearest example is in his attitude towards death-eaters and bullies. He hears Draco talk about raping people, and decides to befriend him. He sees people being bullies at school, and is ready to seriously injure them. He hears about his own parents being bullies, and decides they must have been terrible. He says that death-eaters have made their lives forfeit (I think Amycus Carrow or somebody has threatened Hermione's life or something, and Harry is telling Dumbledore how he wants to go and murder him). He pals around with Quirrell even though he is OBVIOUSLY EVIL (okay, this really isn't about Harry's ethics, but it's clearly an issue of the story). He's talks a big game about scouring evil people from the earth, but is revolted to his very core by Azkaban (and releases a murderer who had been found guilty; despite the tenuous reasoning he's given for why she wasn't truly guilty, from a man who is OBVIOUSLY EVIL, it still seems like a low-marginal-value thing to spend his time on, especially considering he simultaneously ignores the plight of every other prisoner). He threatens the wizengamot over their verdict, even though the evidence is pretty damning against Hermione, honestly.
Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that Harry is in one second ready to kill anyone who is moderately indecent to the point of bullying another, or not immediately respecting that he is the most ingenious-and-capable 11-yo in the world, and in the next second is the most generous, rehabilitation-focused humanist possible, and in the next will rationalize pretty sketchyl bargains with Quirrel or Lucius Malfoy.