OrphanWilde comments on The Triumph of Humanity Chart - Less Wrong

23 Post author: Dias 26 October 2015 01:41AM

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Comment author: OrphanWilde comment score below threshold [+] (10 children)

Comment author: Lukas_Gloor 27 October 2015 01:03:35AM * -1 points [-]

Maybe I'm wrong, but my guess is that if someone wrote "Life is neutral; some states are worse than death, and adding new happy people is nice but not important", that person would be called out, and the post would receive a large portion of downvotes. I'm not sure about the downvotes (personally I didn't even downvote the OP), but I think pointing out the somewhat controversial nature of such a blanket statement is definitely a good thing. Would you oppose this as well (similarly aggressively)?

We could talk about whether my view of what's controversial or not is biased. I would not object to someone saying "Murder is bad" without prefacing it with "Personally, I think", even though I'm sure most uncontrolled AIs will disagree with this for reasons I cannot find any faults in. But assuming that we're indeed talking about an issue where there's no consensus among EAs, then to me it seems epistemically appropriate to at least hint at this lack of consensus, just like you do when you talk about a scientific hypothesis that is controversial among experts. And it makes even more sense to hint at this, if some people don't even realize that there's a lack of consensus. For whatever reason, EAs that came to EA through LW care much more about preventing death than EAs that found to EA through e.g. Peter Singer's books. And I thought it might be interesting to LW-originating EAs that a significant fraction of EAs "from elsewhere" feel alienated by the way some issues are being discussed on LW. Whether they give a shit about it is a different question of course.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 27 October 2015 01:33:29PM 2 points [-]

See, the issue is that you think the downvotes were because of your views. I can't speak for other people, but I downvoted you because you were engaging in behaviors I prefer to discourage; namely, ignoring the substantive thrust of a post to nitpick at a relatively insignificant comment made in the middle whose absence wouldn't affect the post as a whole. And, as we see here, you made that comment not because it was substantive or seriously detracted from the post, but because it was an ideological matter with which you disagreed with the author. Hence my comment to you: "I found it concern-trolling at worst, and irrelevant at best".

Because, as Dagon pointed out, using your criteria, the progress is -still- a positive thing. That's the point of this post. Taking it as an opportunity to try to start an ideological fight is just bad manners.

See, downvotes here don't mean Less Wrong disagrees with you (although that's how some people use it, it's not the cultural standard). Downvotes mean people want to see less of the kind of post/comment that was downvoted.

I honestly don't give a tinker's cuss about the intra-movement arguments within EA, and if this is how EA behaves, I'd like to see less of it as a whole. You're not representing your movement very well.

Comment author: Lukas_Gloor 27 October 2015 02:22:36PM -1 points [-]

you made that comment not because it was substantive or seriously detracted from the post, but because it was an ideological matter with which you disagreed with the author

I generally dislike it when people talk about moral views that way, even if they mention views I support. I might be less inclined to call it out in a case where I intuitively strongly agree, but I still do it some of the time. I agree it wasn't the main point of his post, I never denied that. In fact I wrote that I agree the developments are impressive. By that, I meant the graphs. Since when is it discouraged to point out minor criticism in a post? The fact that I singled out this particular post to make a comment that would maybe fit just as well elsewhere just happens to be a coincidence.

Taking it as an opportunity to try to start an ideological fight is just bad manners.

No one is even talking about arguments or intuition-pumps for or against any of the moral views mentioned. I wasn't "starting an ideological flight", I was making meta remark about the way people present moral views. If anything, I'd be starting an ideological fight about my metaethical views and what I consider to be a productive norm of value-related discourse on this site.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 27 October 2015 03:09:03PM 0 points [-]

Since when is it discouraged to point out minor criticism in a post?

Again, I wasn't speaking for all of Less Wrong. You'd have to ask the others why they downvoted you, but having committed the major faux pax of complaining about being downvoted, I don't think they'll be as receptive at this point.

I discourage anything that relates to pedantry, downvote whenever somebody is making a point, not because the point needs to be heard, but because they need to be heard. There's some subjectivity to it, of course. But it boils down to "Do I find that this comment adds, or detracts, from the meaningful conversation that can be had?" And I found yours to detract more than it added, for reasons already specified.

There's also more than a slight smell of identity politics to the way you're approaching this, particularly in the way you immediately threw yourself into the "Victim" role as soon as you perceived you weren't being treated with the gravity you expected. That might be an avenue for you to consider. Identity politics don't go over well here.

OrphanWilde comments on The Triumph of Humanity Chart - Less Wrong

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