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Lumifer comments on November 2014 Media Thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (154)
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.
The purpose of LessWrong is to discuss and learn rationality, so I think politics are almost never appropriate here. But even if we think that civilized discussion of political matters is appropriate, the post I was critiquing was not, IMO, up to our standards of civility and polite discussion.
I don't think it was out of line. May I suggest instead that you reject it because of its ideological content which you find unacceptable? Fighting against the political mindkill you fall prey precisely to what you object to.
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.