Open Thread Feb 22 - Feb 28, 2016

Elo

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

I figured anti-polyamory propaganda did not need annotations on LessWrong. It's telling that all but one reply took it as something which needs to be suppressed/counterargued, despite me calling it propaganda and saying it was interesting as an example of psychological tricks people pull. No one here is going to be taken in by this. I would not have posted this on facebook or another more general audience site.

I did not feel like writing it up in any detail would make a great use of my time, the examples to use for future pattern matching to are pretty obvious in the video and don't need spelling out. I just wanted to drop the link here because I'd found it mildly enlightening, and figured others may have a similar experience. I take the negative feedback as meaning content people are politically sensitive to is not welcome, even if it's rationality relevant (resistance to manipulation tricks) and explicitly non-endorsed. That's unfortunate, but okay.

It's telling that all but one reply took it as something which needs to be suppressed/counterargued

What does it tell?

Why do you see "suppressed" and "counterargued" as similar?

Who suggested it needs to be suppressed?

You had four replies. One, from Elo, queries a claim made in a document from the Austin Institute on the same topic as the video. One, from bogus, suggests that although the video is meant to be anti-poly, maybe it's effectively pro-poly because it's consciousness-raising. One, from ChristianKI, suggests that you're givin... (read more)

1Viliam10y

If you choose so. You could also choose to take it as a feedback that linking to a 15-minutes long video will mostly annoy people.

1ChristianKl10y

If a trick is trivially seen, there likely no update made by seeing the trick in action and I don't see the argument for the value of seeing it in action. To the extend you claim you saw new tricks that you weren't aware of in the past that does raise the question of how you conceptualize those newly seen tricks. [...] Political sensitivity has nothing to do with my assessment. You could label any bad source on the internet rationality relevant by saying that it serves to see bad reasoning in action. You haven't provided any argument why this particular piece of propaganda is more worthy of attention than other pieces of propaganda. Apart from that I'm doubtful that the mechanism you propose actually leads to resistance to manipulation tricks. Adopting new habits is hard. If the article lead you to see manipulation attempt at content that supports your own position that you previously haven't seen that would interesting information to talk about. Till now I haven't seen that the video had that effect on you and even less that the video has that effect on other potential viewers.