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Wei_Dai comments on How can we get more and better LW contrarians? - Less Wrong Discussion

58 Post author: Wei_Dai 18 April 2012 10:01PM

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Comment author: prase 18 April 2012 11:03:58PM 63 points [-]

I have significantly decreased my participation on LW discussions recently, partly for reasons unrelated to whatever is going on here, but I have few issues with the present state of this site and perhaps they are relevant:

  • LW seems to be slowly becoming self-obsessed. "How do we get better contrarians?" "What should be our debate policies?" "Should discussing politics be banned on LW?" "Is LW a phyg?" "Shouldn't LW become more of a phyg?" Damn. I am not interested in endless meta-debates about community building. Meta debates could be fine, but only if they are rare - else I feel I am losing purposes. Object-level topics should form an overwhelming majority both in the main section and in the discussion.
  • Too narrow set of topics. Somewhat ironically the explicitly forbidden politics is debated quite frequently, but many potentially interesting areas of inquiry are left out completely. You post a question about calculus in the discussion section and get downvoted, since it is "off topic" - ask on MathOverflow. A question about biology? Downvoted, if it is not an ev-psych speculation. Physics? Downvoted, even if it is of the most popular QM-interpretational sort. A puzzle? Downvoted. But there is only so much one can say about AI and ethics and Bayesian epistemology and self-improvement on a level accessible to general internet audience. When I discovered Overcoming Bias (whose half later evolved into LW), it was overflowing with revolutionary and inspiring (from my point of view) ideas. Now I feel saturated as majority of new articles seem to be devoid of new insights (again from my point of view).

If you are afraid that LW could devolve into a dogmatic narrow community without enough contrarians to maintain high level of epistemic hygiene, don't try to spawn new contrarians by methods of social engineering. Instead try to encourage debates on diverse set of topics, mainly those which haven't been addressed by 246 LW articles already. If there is no consensus, people will disagree naturally.

Comment author: Wei_Dai 19 April 2012 08:55:46AM 14 points [-]

I'm not trying to spawn new contrarians for the sake of having more contrarians, nor want to encourage debate for the sake of having more disagreements. What I care about is (me personally as well as this community as a whole) having correct beliefs on the topics that I think are most important, namely the core rationality and Singularity-related topics, and I think having more contrarians who disagree about these core topics would help with that. Your suggestion doesn't seem to help with my goals, or at least it's not obvious to me how it would.

(BTW, I note that you've personally made 2 meta/community posts out of 7, whereas I've only made about 3 out of 58 (plus or minus a few counting errors). So maybe you can give me a pass on this one? :)

Comment author: prase 19 April 2012 05:09:40PM *  7 points [-]

I note that you've personally made 2 meta/community posts out of 7, whereas I've only made about 3 out of 58

I plead guilty and promise to avoid making meta posts in the future. (Edit: I don't object specifically to your meta-posts but to the overall relative number of meta discussions lately.)

Nevertheless, I doubt calling for more contrarians is helpful with respect to your purposes. The question how to increase the number of contrarians is naturally answered by proposals to create more contrarian-friendly environment, which, if implemented, attract disproportionally high amount of people who like to be contrarians, whatever the local orthodoxy is. My suggestion is, instead, to try to attract more diverse set of people, even those who are not interested in topics you consider important. You would profit indirectly, since some of them would get eventually engaged in your favourite discussions and bring fresh ideas. Incidentally they will also somewhat lower the level of discourse, but I am afraid it is an inevitable side effect of any anti-cult policy.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 19 April 2012 01:34:46PM 1 point [-]

Do you also think that having more contrarians who disagree that "2+2=4" would increase our likelihood of having correct beliefs? I mean, if they are wrong, we will see the weakness in their arguments and refuse to update, so there is no harm; but if they are right and we are wrong, it could be very helpful.

More generally, what is your algorithm for deciding for which values of X we need more contrarians who disagree with X?

Comment author: TimS 19 April 2012 02:13:40PM 5 points [-]

If people come to LessWrong thinking "2+2 != 4" or "computer manufacturing isn't science", is saying "You're stupid" really raising the sanity line in any way? In short, we should distinguish between punishing disagreement and punishing obstinate behavior/contrarianism.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 20 April 2012 03:42:10AM *  4 points [-]

"computer manufacturing isn't science"

Well, computer manufacturing isn't science, it's engineering.

Comment author: TimS 20 April 2012 07:30:43PM 1 point [-]

If someone says, "I believe in computers and GPS, but not quantum mechanics or science" then they are deeply confused.

Comment author: [deleted] 24 April 2012 12:48:32AM 0 points [-]

Has there been a glut of those on LessWrong?

Comment author: TimS 24 April 2012 02:38:41AM *  1 point [-]

This. It's obviously very possible that this was a troll, but that's not my read.

Edit: There were one or two others talking a lot without contributing much that seemed to be the impetus for this discussion post. Wei Dai's post seems to be a reaction to that post.

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