TheAltar comments on The Fable of the Burning Branch - Less Wrong

-19 Post author: EphemeralNight 08 February 2016 03:20PM

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Comment author: Dentin 12 February 2016 02:30:13AM 12 points [-]

OP Upvoted.

It's been stated elsewhere that a long standing member of the LW community was leaving because of this post. Well, to counterbalance that, I'm also strongly considering leaving LW, but it's not because of the OP. It's because of these comment threads.

In particular, the comments have shown me just how far the LW community has fallen. I'd really rather not be around people who both get offended so easily and are so willing to mindkill themselves should the slightest opportunity present itself. FYI, the OP isn't about you. It's not about your pet projects. It's not insulting everything you stand for. You're just not that important.

Five years ago, this post would likely have died a simple, unglorious death by being too vague or poorly written to be upvoted. Today it causes a political shitstorm as the community decides to interpret it in a way directly contrary to the stated goal of author. Five years ago, it would have been discussed rationally, the writer would have received tips and suggestions, and quite likely some good would have been drawn out of it. Today, it causes mass mindkilling because people feel that their identity is being attacked.

Those are the kinds of people I don't wish to be around.

Comment author: TheAltar 12 February 2016 02:28:45PM *  6 points [-]

The overwhelming majority of comments in this thread have little to do with the topic and are meta-discussions that people have strong opinions about. These have almost nothing to do with identity, their pet projects, or what they personally stand for. Discussions like these cropping up in an unfavorable thread aren't surprising to me at all and are fairly standard non-political topics for strong disagreement on a forum. The consensus opinion on the thread seems to in fact be that it wasn't well written, doesn't necessarily accomplish its purpose, was overbearing, and should be downvoted as not really relevant to LW.

For anyone just coming into the mix, the main comment threads are:

The upvotes/downvotes in the thread, Eugine, and keeping around annonymous public accounts

The role of having threads that people strongly disagree with continue to exist on LW rather than be deleted

Vote manipulation going on.

How the thread doesn't really belong here

Moderator actions and the overall role of moderation on LW (which makes up over 37% of the thread's comments).

Who is banworthy

The overall harmfulness of the article and arguments back and forth about it

Posts like this driving people away

The only non-meta thread that directly has anything strongly to do with gender was the pluralization of the phrase "non grata" in Latin.

and I think everyone should be reminded that it was all clearly about credit card debt.