I've always hated (not really but I've always disliked) people who take pains to be polite in discourse for the same reasons that I dislike people who take pains to frame themselves as victims. That's actually why I capitalize mocked "The Voice of Polite Reason" above.
Manners are almost always used as a ploy for power. Manners hinder productive conversation and allow for framing techniques that automatically give certain positions more weight than others. I've never had a productive conversation in which I did not speak frankly. I feel basically the same way about manners as Nietzsche did about all of morality, upon reflection. Neato.
I care about downvoting because it reflects widespread ignorance and most people here seem to not recognize the ignorance. It sort of legitimizes the ignorance, as well, which would result in discarding a good theory which was not in my interests because I wanted to discuss the theory because I wanted to predict what would happen next. I never said that I think people should care less about receiving downvoting, I said that people should give out downvotes with less intensity and frequency.
I've always hated (not really but I've always disliked) people who take pains to be polite in discourse
Ironically, in the other thread you complained that my tone was too rude/snippy/paternalistic/whatever. In that thread I conceded that I was probably being a bit rude. In this thread you're complaining that I'm paying attention to being polite.
So it seems that either being rude or being polite, either paying too little or too much attention to manners, will get you to insult and attack other people. Downvoted.
The next discussion thread is here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 85. The previous thread has long passed 500 comments. Comment in the 15th thread until you read chapter 85.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: