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fivelier comments on Case Study: Testing Confirmation Bias - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (61)
I assume some combination of using the word "cult" repeatedly, and the tonal offensiveness - and the writing style is lazy and hard to read (point form). The content is also more offensive the drethelin's similar point above.
For my part, I'd like to restate my point and see if the votes shift.
I feel drethelin's summary of Gwern's post is pretty fair. There's not much of interest in it. I think people are also underestimating how immoral Gwern's behavior is (meaning: how counterproductive if adopted as a rule). It is also injurious in this specific case.
I also think it is pretty obvious that Gwern could expect this post to be upvoted. The injury is not to a LessWrongian, and it confirms "beliefs" held by LessWrongians. Human experimentation is often fun! Gwern may not see himself as explicitly having posted for that reason, but I do think he paid very little heed to outside parties, both as they might perceive this reflecting on LessWrong and as they might be directly harmed (even in odd ways, such as taking this seriously). It is this lack of awareness of the outside world that I called cult-like. I do not believe folks here are seriously letting this hurt their opinion of Gwern, and they should. I would take considerable pains to avoid people who behave in this way.
If I had the option to vote up multiple times, I would have voted up a post like gwern's about a prominent LWer more times than I would have this post of gwern's.
I now want to interact with gwern more but want people I know who are less accepting of abrasive social norm violations to interact with gwern less. I personally would be elated if my friends pulled this kind of thing on me with some (but not too much) regularity.
Edit: fivelier brings up a good point. My first thought was "I wish it was normal to expect someone might be performing this kind of test!", then "Really? Would I really be happy about that?" then "well, if my friends did it, yes, definitely". But I only wrote the final statement.
I marvel at the apparent certitude with which you introspect. Maybe doubt is supposed to be implicit in all such statements, but I'd throw some extra weaseling in sometimes to make it clearer. In any event, your analogy is horrible: "friends" means private, different reputation issues, etc.
Edit: I should add, my point has nothing to do with "abrasive" social norm violations, as I understand that term. I consider that typical LessWrongian self-congratulation.
I've edited to include a more full version of my thoughts, good point.
Please do me the favor of accepting my apologies for tone, even if you don't care. So, my original response was intended as a compatibility test. If I were a LessWrongian (I'm giving digs for fun), I would call it a literacy test or an intelligence test. So, if you think that -11 (as once it was) is surprising or not really sensible, we're possibly compatible (even though I think the score is fair; personal biases). Otherwise, less likely (is the intent). I was also considering forbidding people from downvoting me. Apologies: just amusing myself. I'll stop now.
I would love to test LWers more, but it's hard to find any good approaches. Suppose I wanted to test Eliezer - what field of new data exactly would I supply? If I had a time-machine, I could supply observations of the future's progress on AI and reverse them, but unfortunately I do not have one.
I suppose I could supply critical information on cryonics - claim there were new defrostings?, but when I've supplied good information on cryonics in the past, my posts and comments get upvoted!