= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
polymathwannabe comments on Voiceofra is banned - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (222)
She's already abused her power at least once to ban someone for expressing opinions she doesn't like.
In the comment that got him banned, Advancedatheist said:
just after he implied that lack of sexually available women was a viable explanation for two cases of mass murder.
I don't think it's "abuse of power" to obstruct the dissemination of such abhorrent views, especially at a website that has world-improvement as one of its central goals.
Is it an abhorrent view to turn away people fleeing the Holocaust? To eat babies? To kill a person for their organs? To divert a trolley to kill a person in order to save someone else? To state that some populations have higher IQ than others? To suggest that divorce is harmful to children?
The truth of a view is more important than whether or not it's abhorrent. I agree with entirelyuseless in that I endorse banning advancedatheist because he had a long string of low-quality posting but do not endorse banning him because of the content of that comment by itself.
Do you have any idea how many LW users that would apply to? Come to think of it, looking through polymathwannabe's recent history the highest quality content appears to be the open threads he initiates.
This illustrates the effect size of the action. It's one of a few things that seem to me to have the potential of changing the current situation, although it's likely useless on its own, and it's not obvious whether the change would be for the better. A few years ago I maintained a list of users whose comments I was subscribed to (via rss), and two other lists, marked "toxic" and "clueless". Getting rid of those users might make lesswrong a better place, if it won't scare away the rest.
It would certainly be for the worse if the banning was selectively enforced based on whether the mod in question liked the opinion being expressed.
I don't see a certainty in this. Policies have downsides. It's not clear how significant a bit of systematic injustice and bias would be compared to the other effects.
I'm much more tolerant of clueless than toxic, but even then there is a limit.
Amen. But the LW Terms of Use state:
This case went beyond LW's usual attitude toward debate; this was explicit advocacy of violence, which should always be treated as Serious Business.
Did you mean for the "advocacy of violence" link to go to https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Deletion_policy#Hypothetical_violence_against_identifiable_targets instead?
It seemed that one applied to the Wiki only, so I didn't use it.
As much as I am a feminist and find Advancedatheist's views insane and super-creepy, “we need to restore a healthy patriarchy where women can't get sexual experience until marriage” is not an advocacy of violence. Maybe he wants to restore patriarchy via peaceful means.
It's hard (at least for me -- YMMV) to read "can't get" (emphasis added; as opposed to e.g. "don't get") in a way that doesn't imply the threat of violence (broadly construed) against women who do try to get sexual experience before marriage. Then again, by such standards proposals to e.g. ban a particular drug would also count as advocacy of violence, so probably EY had something less broad in mind.
Or discussion of any laws whatsoever.
I meant the part where he implied that lack of sex justified mass murder.
I've read his Reddit comment. It doesn't seem like he's justifying (as in saying it's OK) mass murder, just claiming mass murder will continue if patriarchy is not restored. I get how you feel about AA, but you're stretching.
I believe the intent of EY's ban on violence was violence against identifiable individuals. Discussion and advocacy of violence against collective groups (the canonical example being supporting specific wars) is OK.