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katydee comments on November 2014 Media Thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (154)
Please stop making comments like this.
shminux is right here, this is not a helpful attitude on your part. While it's important to avoid encouraging political debates on LessWrong, exercising virtues such as moderation and tolerance when such issues do come up is even more important.
I agree. That's why I looked at advancedatheist's comment history before replying. If this were the only such comment, I would not have called it out-- but this user has a history of posting similar comments.
Now, advancedatheist has also posted comments that advocate neoreactionary positions in ways that I consider totally appropriate for LessWrong-- this one, for example. But IMO there's a clear difference in tone and tenor between that and this.
This request is likely to be ineffectual without something more concrete. The OP makes several rambling points, it's not clear which you disagree with.
I disagree with the general concept that LW is an appropriate place to post bizarre, mindkilled political rants.
I agree that the tone sucks. However, some of the points are valid. For example, the large chunk of opposition to (online) feminism is now from the mens rights crowd, not from traditional-gender-roles crowd. And this pattern should be expected to continue in the future.
For example, the main opposition to assisted suicide in the US is currently religion-motivated. However, in Canada and elsewhere where religion is only a minor player, the main opposition is from the secular disability rights movements. The advocates of the right to die with dignity will find themselves opposing similarly "progressive", kind and compassionate people, once the issue is no longer about faith.
You can probably name another issue or two where overcoming one obstacle only leaves you bashing against a different, unexpected one, without having made much progress.
I don't particularly care about whether the points are valid. This kind of discussion isn't what LessWrong is for, especially when it's being posted with this sort of tone.
Ah. You did mention something about "mindkilled", right?
Yes, ha ha. This is a serious matter, though. I believe that it really truly doesn't matter whether someone's political points are good or not. LessWrong should not allow itself to be a venue for this sort of behavior, especially when it's accompanied by this sort of tone.
In order for the LessWrong community to flourish, I think it is critical that it be divorced from bickering over political matters. So when it comes to posts like this one, I really truly don't care whether their arguments are valid or not-- either way, they shouldn't be on LessWrong
For discussion of political matters? A bit late for that, I think. This train has left the station.
I disagree. "Bickering", of course, is a word with negative connotations, but I see no reason to taboo political discussions here. Politics of all sorts are important in real life and having a giant blind spot doesn't look too useful for that winning thing that rationality is supposed to be about :-/
So far on LW people have shown their ability to have civilized discussions even while disagreeing about politics. That's a good thing.
Has it? Insofar as it has, that's been thanks to our own failure to tend to basic principles. I think that in order to better reach as many people as possible, it's critical that LW avoid politics and the potential biases that can result.
I do agree that having civilized discussions even while disagreeing about politics is important. But there are other venues for that, like Slate Star Codex, and if we indeed need more of this I think it's better to move it off-site.
Re-read that post carefully :-) It doesn't say not to discuss politics, it says don't be an ass about it.
I am unaware that this is a goal of LW. If, by any chance, it is, LW is spectacularly unsuccessful at it :-D
Well, we disagree about that. In a fairly civilized fashion, so far :-)
P.S. And most discussion here is actually about political philosophy, not politics themselves. Notice how today's US elections which flipped the Senate got zero posts on LW.
Mind killed means that someone is using ineffective heuristics. You can follow pretty irrational heuristics and still get the correct answer by luck.
No. "Mindkilled" means that someone is not amenable to reason.
Not being amenable to reason is following an irrational heuristics for determining truth.
And the main point still stands regardless. You can get the right answer even when you are not amenable to reason.