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.

MugaSofer comments on [LINK] Why I'm not on the Rationalist Masterlist - Less Wrong Discussion

21 Post author: Apprentice 06 January 2014 12:16AM

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

Comments (866)

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

Comment author: MugaSofer 21 January 2014 12:18:47PM *  4 points [-]

Original comment, for your viewing pleasure: (I hate it when people delete comments so you can't understand what was going on.)

Hmm.

Based on the much-remarked-upon vague, slippery writing style, the lack of "rationalist" signaling, the level of familiar (to me) "social justice warrior" signalling ... and, most importantly, the fact that the link goes not to a post on someone's blog, but what appears to be a specifically-created site with no other content disguised as a blog ...

... I find myself increasingly convinced we just got trolled - and hard, judging by the sheer size of the comment thread it spawned despite their thesis being almost universally rejected.

I don't really mind discussing things that originated with a bad-faith partner, which is why I am usually among the last people to concede someone is probably a troll (along with a strong belief in the principle of charity.) So in a case such as this where the evidence overwhelms even my cultivated tendency against it - for the record, people really are too eager to declare their enemy Evil via the FAE and disengage - I find myself convinced they really are engaging in bad faith, in this case.

Annoyingly, I don't have access to a way to transfer funds over the internet, or I would be offering very good odds ... although, of course, it's likely that this person will simply never resurface after this single incident at all. I certainly don't expect them to post anything more on that blog - although I suppose they might post a follow up, it seems structured for showcasing a single article.

(Yes, I will be suitably embarrassed if it turns out I was wildly overconfident.)

Well be embarrassed, past me. Unwilling to accept the lack of evidence, I looked around for some more, and they are either a real person, or a truly spectacular hoax that spanned years building up a fake history.

So ... there you go, folks.