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OrphanWilde comments on The Fable of the Burning Branch - Less Wrong
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Comments (175)
Your argument proves too much.
That would require the participants be not-mindkilled, which you clearly are, since you think moderating bad literature is a good idea.
I find it badly written, but that's not a moderation-worthy offense. It presents no serious argument and poses no threat of inspiration. It's about as noteworthy as the average teenage goths' poetry describing what dying would feel like, and cringeworthy for about the same reasons.
I'm forcing this conversation into two positions, in case you haven't noticed: Either you concede it's terrible but harmless and not -worth- moderating, or you now argue that it's actually dangerous.
Do please go ahead and show what it proves that shouldn't be proved.
I do wish you'd stop saying false things about what I think.
You seem very fond of boasting of how you're manipulating this and forcing that and dark-artsing the other. I feel about this roughly the way you feel about Gleb T's writing.
Nope. What I actually say is: (1) it's probably harmless, but that doesn't suffice to make it not worth moderating, and (2) there is a small but nonzero chance that someone takes it more seriously than it deserves and ends up harmed by it.
(Unless you are adopting a very broad definition of "harm" according to which, e.g., something that is merely boring and unpleasant and irrelevant is "harmful" because it wastes people's time and attention. In that case, I would argue that the OP is harmful. Of course that's not the same as "dangerous" and yes, I did notice that you opposed "harmless" to "dangerous" as if the two were one another's negations.)
On #1: well-kept gardens die by pacifism and while Eliezer is there arguing mostly for energetic downvoting of bad material, I suggest that the same arguments can justify moderator action too. If someone is contributing a lot of low-quality material and nothing valuable, maybe it's OK to ban them. If something posted is low-quality and irrelevant and liable to bring Less Wrong into disrepute, maybe it's OK to delete it. If someone is persistently obnoxious, maybe it's OK to ban them. None of this requires that the thing being sanctioned be dangerous.
On #2: people can be inspired by the unlikeliest things. (I went to a rather good concert once where one of the better pieces of music was a setting of what may be the worst poem I have ever read, firmly in teenage goth territory.)
If I were going to boast, it would be about how you changed your mind on multiple things simultaneously to avoid the obvious feint - and apparently didn't notice. Your arguments at this point are so weak as to fall apart at the touch; "probably harmless" and "small but nonzero chance of harm" are such a weak standard of evidence for moderation that nothing would be permitted to be discussed here. It would be much harder to prove your prior version proved too much - but you did the work for me.
But go on and keep thinking that what I'm doing is boasting.
You are, not for the first time in this thread, arguing against things I have not said.
I didn't argue at all there. I pointed out that your position changed in anticipation of an objection you expected me to raise, to forestall the objection from having merit.
The argument, you see, is already over. You played your part, I played mine, and the audience is looking for a new show, the conclusion for this one already having played out in the background.
You got me there!