I feel like I've posted some good stuff in the past month, but the bits that I think are coolest have pretty consistently gotten very negative karma.
I just read the rude post about rationalist discourse basics, and, while I can guess why my posts are receiving negative karma, that would involve a truly large amount of speculating about the insides of other people's heads, which is apparently discouraged. So I figured I would ask.
I will offer a bounty of $1000 for the answer I find most helpful, and a bounty of $100 for the next most helpful three answers. This will probably be paid out over Venmo, if that is a decision-relevant factor.
Note that I may comment on your answer asking for clarification.
Edit 11-30-2023 1:27 AM: I have selected the recipients of the bounties. The grand prize of $1000 goes to @Shankar Sivarajan . The three runner-up prizes of $100 go to @tslarm , @Joe Kwon , and @trevor . Please respond to my DM to arrange payment or select a worthy charity to receive your winnings.
Edit 11-30-2023 12:08 PM: I have paid out all four bounties. Please contact me in DM if there is any issue with any of the bounties.
I think you need to be more frugal with your weirdness points (and more generally your demanding-trust-and-effort-from-the-reader points), and more mindful of the inferential distance between yourself and your LW readers.
Also remember that for every one surprisingly insightful post by an unfamiliar author, we all come across hundreds that are misguided, mediocre, or nonsensical. So if you don't yet have a strong reputation, many readers will be quick to give up on your posts and quick to dismiss you as a crank or dilettante. It's your job to prove that you're not, and to do so before you lose their attention!
If there's serious thought behind The Snuggle/Date/Slap Protocol then you need to share more of it, and work harder to convince the reader it's worth taking seriously. Conciseness is a virtue but when you're making a suggestion that is easy to dismiss as a half-baked thought bubble or weird joke, you've got to take your time and guide the reader along a path that begins at or near their actual starting point.
Ethicophysics II: Politics is the Mind-Savior opens with language that will trigger the average LWer's bullshit detector, and appears to demand a lot of effort from the reader before giving them reason to think it will be worthwhile. LW linkposts often contain the text of the linked article in the body of the LW post, and at first glance this looks like one of those. In any case, we're probably going to scan the body text before clicking the link. So before we've read the actual article we are hit with a long list of high-effort, unclear-reward, and frankly pretentious-looking exercises. When we do follow the link to Substack we face the trivial inconvenience of clicking two more links and then, if we're not logged in to academia.edu, are met with an annoying 'To Continue Reading, Register for Free' popup. Not a big deal if we're truly motivated to read the paper! But at this point we probably don't have much confidence that it will be worth the hassle.
Why not post the contents of the papers directly on Substack? They would only be one click away from here, and would not compete against Substack.
From my perspective, adacemia.edu and Substack are equally respectable (that is, not at all).