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Desrtopa comments on Open Thread, October 7 - October 12, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (312)
While I did not upvote the original post itself, I'll note here my disagreement with all the comments taking issue with the post for being "off topic." We entertain topics related only very tangentially to rationality on a regular basis, and the issue is not that this subject is off topic beyond our usual tolerances, it's that practically any community will get the screaming heebie jeebies the moment it's raised. This is one of our existing taboos which is still strong enough for people to be hit by social splatter damage just by being near it and not protesting.
The point is, if it were on topic, taking the status hit of exploring the subject matter might be justifiable. As it stands now its value is completely negative to the community.
I bet the exact same argument if it was in a open thread comment would have been upvoted and would on net be considered a gain.
Claims like this when well argued are welcomed even outside threads for taboo topics (and even if they where only welcomed there that still leaves room for discussion). I recall the topic being discussed on the unofficial IRC channel and other comments.
Thanks, I think I had missed or forgotten that. That thread you linked seems awesome.
It's hard for me to believe the difference was just that he didn't post in the open thread. He seems monomaniacal with his cause, and planned to post more of the same. He hasn't discussed any other topic here, even introduced himself as a pedophile in the introduction thread.
Can you think of any other ways he could have been better received?
Well, it is a huge difference. An article has a name, it can be linked independently, and it appears on a new web page with the logo of LessWrong above it. The only context it has is "this is the article published on LessWrong".
A comment is just a comment. Yeah, in LW software it can also be linked separately, but at least the web page starts with saying that this is just one article and you can click here to see the whole context. And that specific article says that this is the place for controversial topics, so it's like any comment posted there is automatically labeled as controversial. (It's like coming with a monster costume on Halloween; everyone knows it's a monster constume for Halloween.)
Imagine how newspaper websites look like, because many people have more experience reading them. The articles are written by editors; the newspaper owner is responsible for them. The comments are written by anyone, and it is obvious they don't represent the opinion of the newspaper owner. Criticizing a newspaper for the article they published is reasonable, but people usually don't criticize the newspaper for a random comment below it's article, because they understand the comment was made by someone else. -- LessWrong is not like this, but if you send a hyperlink to people used to deal with newspapers and one-person blogs, they may have similar assumptions.
Because he has no good place to post them elsewhere and expect a reasonable discussion. :(
Unfortunately this just makes the whole things worse. If LW becomes the rare place where this topic is treated reasonably, we can expect dozens of new members coming to express the same feelings here. That's the horrible effect that if some kind of people are unwelcome at most places, any place that becomes tolerant to them faces a huge risk to become crowded by them disproportionately.
Which suggests there's a market for a web forum whose policy is that controversial topics are welcomed and discussion of those topics must be reasonable no matter how reprehensible one considers the position one is discussing, and the moderators assiduously ban/delete violations of that policy.
As you say, LW is not that forum, and does not wish to be.
Incidentally, I would be astonished if such forums didn't exist already. Were I looking for one, I would probably ask around on someplace like FetLife.
Admittedly, there are some mainstream-controversial topics that get discussed in that way here, with that sort of social norm, and I expect that in some communities the opinion of LW is tainted by those discussions in the same way you discuss. But the consensus opinion of LW seems to be that the opinions of those communities don't really matter very much.
One difference is a different degree of taboo. Another one, I suspect more important, was the timing. The controversial topics didn't start by someone posting a full article out of the blue. They first appeared as comments in other articles, somewhat related to their topics. Only later someone would write an article about it. And at least I didn't have an impression that someone is on LW only to talk about the taboo topics.
In other words, if you want to talk about controversial topics, don't start by shocking everyone. (Unless it's a "door in the face" technique, when the shocking article gets heavily downvoted, but then people feel kinda guilty and become more tolerant in the discussion.)
Yes, those are two differences, agreed. My suspicion is that the importance ranks the other way, but you might be right.
Agreed, including the caveat and a few other caveats in the same vein.
You convinced me. Just vividly imagining this caused an availability bias.
That's a great analogy. I'm going to steal it!
This is a good point, and wouldn't be limited to just pedophiles. Permitting all taboos in the name of rationality is just going to lead to more taboos being discussed. Good luck selling rationality to people after that. Then again, if rationality simply doesn't appeal to regular citizens, perhaps attracting controversy would be a great marketing strategy ;)
Not to mention that it is, in my experience, a huge pain to locate any individual comment via site search unless they're either highly upvoted or found on some of the most trafficked pages.
Well, it is, and it isn't. If I were trying to find these discussions, I would google site:http://lesswrong.com "child porn" pedophilia or something of the sort, and it would work all right. But yes, one still has to look around a little; it isn't the same as a link to an article.
Well, when I've attempted that method while trying to track down old comments on the site, I've often found that the comments I'm looking for do not come up as results, even when a sufficiently thorough search through the archives of the site is sufficient to find them, but if the keywords match to few enough other results, it might be more effective.
There's nothing wrong with selfish intent. Most of my intents are selfish.
I see I had a more constrained idea of selfishness in mind than you did. I'm not interested in arguing semantics (or maybe I am?). Removed the part about selfishness. It wasn't the point anyways.
ETA: Here's what I think is selfish: pushing your goals without concern for others. Perhaps you assumed a more general interpretation where looking for pleasure and avoiding pain is selfish. In that case, you've made the word useless, because it applies to everyone.
your definition of selfishness does not seem to apply here, as he seems to want to help everyone else in his own situation.
So he says. He belongs to the group he's trying to help. He seems to have no concern for LWers. Was I correct about your definition?
Pretty much. I think the use of the word selfish as a pejorative is usually bad.
I used to think so too.
What changed your mind?
And, relatedly, is there a difference between pushing my goals without concern for others, and pushing my goals in situations where I expect others to be harmed by my doing so?
I don't think the word selfish ever has had a positive connotation, and rarely a neutral one. I used to argue about word definitions, but then I realized it's less frustrating to use words the way people usually do. I think self-interest is a similar word usually used in a more neutral manner.
I think a good rule of thumb is to assume people don't mean to use words in ways that describe everything or nothing in the reference class i.e. "everyone is selfish and nobody is an altruist", "no love is unconditional". Don't think people are as stupid as their language is.
I think people use stronger words for this, but selfish is used too. Evil comes to mind.
Except, of course, if they go against my inclusive interests in any way that my social influence can hope to impact. In that case it is Wrong, Other-Tribalish, sinister, naive, uncouth, dirty and generally low status.