The messageboard would be basically unreadable if every karma was replaced by a comment saying "Right on!" or "fuck you!". People who want to tell you why you're right or wrong will tell you regardless, what karma does is provide an additional means of feedback that way more people can use without having to go over the threshold of writing entire responses to everything. It gives you MORE information, not less.
"Right on" and "fuck you" are about as useless as "upvote" and "downvote", if not more so. If people don't think their opinion of a post is important or intense enough to go through the effort of explaining why they have that opinion, then they should treat is as neutral and keep it to themselves. Upvotes and downvotes are about as useless a means of feedback as can be provided; they don't tell you what they think needs to be changed, they don't tell you why they think it needs to be changed, all they tell you is tha...
This is my first attempt at starting a casual conversation on LW where people don't have to worry about winning or losing points, and can just relax and have social fun together.
So, Big Bang Theory. That series got me wondering. It seems to be about "geeks", and not the basement-dwelling variety either; they're highly successful and accomplished professionals, each in their own field. One of them has been an astronaut, even. And yet, everything they ever accomplish amounts to absolutely nothing in terms of social recognition or even in terms of personal happiness. And the thing is, it doesn't even get better for their "normal" counterparts, who are just as miserable and petty.
Consider, then; how would being rationalists would affect the characters on this show? The writing of the show relies a lot on laughing at people rather than with them; would rationalist characters subvert that? And how would that rationalist outlook express itself given their personalities? (After all, notice how amazingly different from each other Yudkowsky, Hanson, and Alicorn are, just to name a few; they emphasize rather different things, and take different approaches to both truth-testing and problem-solving).
Note: this discussion does not need to be about rationalism. It can be a casual, normal discussion about the series. Relax and enjoy yourselves.
But the reason I brought up that series is that its characters are excellent examples of high intelligence hampered by immense irrationality. The apex of this is represented by Dr. Sheldon Cooper, who is, essentially, a complete fundamentalist over every single thing in his life; he applies this attitude to everything, right down to people's favorite flavor of pudding: Raj is "axiomatically wrong" to prefer tapioca, because the best pudding is chocolate. Period. This attitude makes him a far, far worse scientist than he thinks, as he refuses to even consider any criticism of his methods or results.