You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

JoshuaZ comments on [META] Retributive downvoting: Why? - Less Wrong Discussion

12 Post author: ialdabaoth 27 November 2012 02:24AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (110)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 27 November 2012 01:28:48PM 1 point [-]

Hmm, interesting. Has it been on specific issues or across a broad variety of subjects?

Comment author: Thomas 27 November 2012 01:40:07PM *  -2 points [-]

Here, for example.

I will not discuss it further, to avoid who knows who, who does not permit a shadow of a doubt in "settled topics" like Goedel's theorems or Climate change or anything and downvotes accordingly.

Comment author: ChristianKl 29 November 2012 01:39:34PM *  1 point [-]

If you do challenge the mainstream position in a "settled topic" your post should be longer than one sentence.

I have personally never read the proof of Gödel's theorem. I believe that it works because I trust in the authority of the mathematical community. I don't know to which extend the property of finitness is important for the proof. If you make such a claim in a "settled topics", it's your burden to explain to me why it's important.

If I read that discussion I come away with thinking that JoshuaZ knows what he's talking about. I don't know whether you understand the math that's involved on deep level. A lot of people without deep mathematical understanding can make a claim to challenge Gödel the way you did.

Comment author: Thomas 30 November 2012 12:18:29PM 1 point [-]

You should read more carefully.

I am not saying that Goedel's theorem does not hold. I am saying it is irrelevant for the finite sets.

Comment author: Desrtopa 27 November 2012 02:04:00PM *  1 point [-]

I'm a bit confused that you chose this as an example, because he's clearly responding to you there rather than the other way around.

Comment author: Thomas 27 November 2012 02:37:43PM *  -1 points [-]
Comment author: Desrtopa 27 November 2012 02:40:27PM *  1 point [-]

In that case, I would guess you were downvoted either by Will Sawin, or (more likely,) one of the people who upvoted him for correcting you.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 27 November 2012 07:46:09PM 0 points [-]

Although note that in that case, although Will did find a coherent way of getting that sort of probability, if anything it underscores that Thomas's essential point there was correct: My probability estimate in that context was at best weird and more likely just poorly thought out, probably because of overcorrecting my overconfidence.