= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Dentin comments on The Fable of the Burning Branch - 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 (175)
OP Upvoted.
It's been stated elsewhere that a long standing member of the LW community was leaving because of this post. Well, to counterbalance that, I'm also strongly considering leaving LW, but it's not because of the OP. It's because of these comment threads.
In particular, the comments have shown me just how far the LW community has fallen. I'd really rather not be around people who both get offended so easily and are so willing to mindkill themselves should the slightest opportunity present itself. FYI, the OP isn't about you. It's not about your pet projects. It's not insulting everything you stand for. You're just not that important.
Five years ago, this post would likely have died a simple, unglorious death by being too vague or poorly written to be upvoted. Today it causes a political shitstorm as the community decides to interpret it in a way directly contrary to the stated goal of author. Five years ago, it would have been discussed rationally, the writer would have received tips and suggestions, and quite likely some good would have been drawn out of it. Today, it causes mass mindkilling because people feel that their identity is being attacked.
Those are the kinds of people I don't wish to be around.
The overwhelming majority of comments in this thread have little to do with the topic and are meta-discussions that people have strong opinions about. These have almost nothing to do with identity, their pet projects, or what they personally stand for. Discussions like these cropping up in an unfavorable thread aren't surprising to me at all and are fairly standard non-political topics for strong disagreement on a forum. The consensus opinion on the thread seems to in fact be that it wasn't well written, doesn't necessarily accomplish its purpose, was overbearing, and should be downvoted as not really relevant to LW.
For anyone just coming into the mix, the main comment threads are:
The upvotes/downvotes in the thread, Eugine, and keeping around annonymous public accounts
The role of having threads that people strongly disagree with continue to exist on LW rather than be deleted
Vote manipulation going on.
How the thread doesn't really belong here
Moderator actions and the overall role of moderation on LW (which makes up over 37% of the thread's comments).
Who is banworthy
The overall harmfulness of the article and arguments back and forth about it
Posts like this driving people away
The only non-meta thread that directly has anything strongly to do with gender was the pluralization of the phrase "non grata" in Latin.
and I think everyone should be reminded that it was all clearly about credit card debt.
None of the criticism of the OP, however intemperate, looks to me as if it's based in the idea that "the OP is about you"; quite the opposite. The basis of the criticism is that (e.g.) the OP is about women, or the OP is about rape, or the OP is about sex. I don't think you can say "just not that important" about those.
Of course not. My point was that people are taking it personally, are taking it as a personal attack on something they identify with. But the reality is that it's not about them.
What makes you think they're taking it personally? Is it just the fact that they're taking it seriously and getting cross about it? (It seems to me that one can perfectly well get cross about something without taking it personally.) Or is there something else?
The great majority of the comments so interpreting it were written before the author made any statement about his goals.
And you're trying to be one of the witch-hunters?
No, I'm afraid of the witch-hunters. (So far, polling indicates that this was not the right hypothesis for the commentary in general.) I avoided commenting until my previous comment because I was pretty sure I'd regret it--probably missing the point or getting drawn into the political deluge--and it seems this was the correct expectation.
Someone who joins the witch-hunters out of fear is still a witch-hunter.
Well, if you're not willing to stand up to the witch-hunters you should at least avoid joining their mobs.
I don't see anything CAE_Jones has said or done here that can possibly be described as witch-hunting or mob-joining.
to which you have successfully contributed by writing this comment.