how can create a Friendly AI, when one can't even create a friendly discussion board?
Different cultures have different notion of what's friendly behavior. If you behave in a way that's friendly behavior in the US in a village in Namibia, you are likely to do things that offend them and bring you into interactions that don't feel good even if the people in the village follow the notions of what friendly Namibian behavior happens to be.
That's roughly what happens here. You expect certain cultural customs to hold that you probably learned in the Social Justice warrior scene. Those customs don't hold in this community and that's why you behave in a way that get's you into this conflict where people vote down your posts a lot.
That doesn't mean that gwern's behavior is optimal and can't be improved, but part of being friendly usually means "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
Well, I should seriously consider this point of view, try to figure out where this other person is coming from, and assume that they have good reason for believing it, even if it's not true.
As far as the IQ debate goes, of course a lot of people have a good reason for being critical of IQ. IQ suggests that people are somehow unequal and many people consider that to be unfair. Gwern isn't oblivious of that fact. He's rather overly optimistic about the prospect of convincing people by pointing them to the research.
Now, as for the statement that you quoted, is it uncivil to point out someone else's incivility?
Yes. It raises the emotional tension of the discussion in a way that not beneficial.
What is wrong with saying "If you can't act like a rationalist, then I'm going to conclude you're not a rationalist"?
A lot. To take the most obvious thing: You presume that gwern cares about whether you consider him to be a rationalist. In the Social Justice community people care about whether other people see them as a "real feminist". We don't have something similar on LW. I don't care how other people on LW mentally label me. I care whether or not other people interact with me in a way that provides utility to me. On LW we are wary of labels. Robin Hanson lately even wrote a post against thinking of yourself as a rationalist.
We don't use labels in a way to press obligations on other people and expect the people to fulfill the obligations to be worthy of the label. That a technique used in the Social Justice world but we don't use it. It reduces the ability of other people to express themselves authentically and do what produces overall utility.
Keep in mind, gwern said that he believed that I was being dishonest in claiming not to understand what he said. He basically called me a liar. You want to call me wrong, fine. I'm quite willing to accept the possibility that I'm wrong. But calling me a LIAR?
To gwern your posts suggested that you lack the mediocre amount of intelligence necessary to see A -> B or you do have the intelligence and pretend to not see A -> B to mess with him. That means the in his interpretation of the situation the two options are that you are either a idiot for failing to have the amount of intelligence to see A -> B or a troll for pretending to fail to see it.
That was gwern's honest understanding of the situation and he expressed it. He didn't call you a idiot or troll to make you feel bad but because those are the terms that accurately describe the situation he perceived to exist.
Of course being an idiot in the sense of having a low IQ likely isn't the cause of you not thinking A -> B. It's more likely inferential distance given a different cultural background.
Whenever you run a test and that test produces a number that number is a metric for what the test measures. That's a core basis on talking about measurements. Debating that fact is like debating whether 1+1=2. If you complain that someone who says 1+1=2 isn't critically investigating his assumptions when you ask him why he thinks that 1+1=2, you are making demands that the person can perceive as unreasonable. In this case gwern is reacting in a way to those demands that's doesn't reflect a wise choice of words on his part.
On the other hand gwern has no obligation with spending the time to make an in depth explanation of why 1+1=2. The proper way to deal with such a discussion would have been for him to bow out.
Different cultures have different notion of what's friendly behavior.
Yes. This is the point. If a there is a project to build a "Friendly" AI by a community that sees nothing wrong with gwern's behavior, then that is not a FAI that I want built.
You expect certain cultural customs to hold that you probably learned in the Social Justice warrior scene. Those customs don't hold in this community and that's why you behave in a way that get's you into this conflict where people vote down your posts a lot.
I feel that you are not listening to what...
Apparently, I am not entitled to be treated with basic civility. Or, at least, not according to gwern. It started when gwern wrote
>>All you're saying is that Saddam called the USA's bluff and was wrong and it was disastrous. That could EASILY have happened with an attempt by the US to demand inspections from Russia.
>Um, no, because the USSR had no reason to think and be correct in thinking it served a useful role for the USA which meant the threats were bluffs that were best ridden out lest it damage both allies' long-term goals.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/kfd/a_parable_of_elites_and_takeoffs/b1xz
I read this as saying the USSR should call the bluff, which made no sense in relation to gwern's other posts. When I asked whether this was actually what was intended, gwern got pissed off, insisted that there was no way a good faith reading could see the post as saying that, and accused me of deliberately misunderstanding. I have bent over backwards to resolve this civilly, but my repeated attempts to get gwern to explain how I had misunderstood the sentence achieved nothing but the accusation that I was making an “underhanded” effort to get gwern to respond. Despite not being willing to discuss the matter in *that* thread, gwern brought the matter up in a comment thread for a completely different article. Throughout our encounters, gwern has been incredibly rude, referring to me as an “idiot” and “troll” (rather hypocritical, given the ridiculously silly claims made by gwern, such as that "A, therefore, A" is not a circular argument), and generally treating me with an utter lack of respect. And in defense, gwern has pointed to high karma and being here a long time as making any accusation of inappropriate behavior “presumptuous”. Because apparently, the popular kids can't be criticized by mere common folk.
Looking at the stats, gwern is indeed the top recent contributor, which makes this behavior all the more worthy of comment. If some random poster were being rude, that would be worrisome, but the fact that the top contributor thinks that a high karma score is license to egregiously violate Wheton's rule suggests that there may be something wrong with the site as a whole.
EY has referred to a need to have this be a “Well-Kept Garden”. So I would like to know whether gwern's behavior is the sort of thing that people here think is acceptable in this garden.