You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Viliam comments on Open Thread Feb 29 - March 6, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: Elo 28 February 2016 10:11PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (285)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 05 March 2016 12:38:27PM 0 points [-]

My conclusion (which anyone is free to disagree with) is that the accusations of political bias more or less express frustration "why don't these people all agree with me?

My objections are not about having bias, but enacting a bias institutionally and through social pressures to shut up people you disagree with.

That impulse to shut others up by power and pressure has a marked tendency to go in one direction.

Your projection of "why don't these people all agree with me?" sounds ridiculous to me. Can you point to a few discussions where NR folks were shocked, just shocked, that there was someone in the world that disagreed with them? I'd think that they're probably well used to that by now. I wouldn't expect them to be shocked.

I'll share my conclusion. In many circles, the Left is accustomed to being able to proselytize their ideology while silencing Unbelievers. LW has a rare density of Libertarian leaning people, who generally aren't the types to sit silently and assent. Failing to ideologically bully, the Left resorted to pressure to just not talk about politics, which achieves the main goal of silencing the Unbelievers.

LessWrong is not supposed to be a claim, but a goal. We have all sorts of wrong ideas that we share and mutually critique on our path to becoming LessWrong. But for politics, no go. More important to shut up those heretical ideas than actually get LessWrong about them.

they said they were rational, and rational people are supposed to agree with me!

No. The desire to speak, and the desire to be free to speak without being pressured to shut up, is not the demand or expectation that everyone agree.

The best approach would be to taboo "neoreaction"

Yeah, the best approach is to UnIdea "neoreaction".

As for your suggested LWSpeak dictionary for political speech, that's conveniently another method of control. You can't use these symbols. You can't talk this way.

How about instead we criticize each other's ideas if we want, and don't criticize them if we don't?

Comment author: Viliam 06 March 2016 01:31:52PM *  1 point [-]

Yeah, the best approach is to UnIdea "neoreaction". As for your suggested LWSpeak dictionary for political speech, that's conveniently another method of control. You can't use these symbols. You can't talk this way.

I guess you have read something about "professing and cheering", "applause lights", "affective spirals", "rationalist taboo", "anticipated experiences", and "replacing symbols with substance". Political debates are not a separate magisterium. Neoreaction is not a separate magisterium within politics.

If your belief has the ambitions to describe the territory, you should be able to describe the same thing without using the shibboleths. A marxist could transform "capitalists exploit workers" into "people who control resources can achieve transactions disadvantageous in long term to people who must participate in transactions with them in order to survive". A libertarian could transform "free markets lead to progress" into "when interactions between people are free of coercion, people are more likely to fully use their creativity". A theist could transform "homosexuality is a sin" into "if you live in a universe with an omnipotent being who infinitely punishes people for sexual relationships with people of the same sex, it is prudent to avoid such relationships".

But if your beliefs are merely cheering for your team, or if the words you use are merely mysterious formless substances, you cannot transform them. Or if your beliefs are wrong (do not match the territory), unpacking the keywords can make the wrongness more obvious. Refusing to unpack your keywords means that on some level you already know that it wouldn't end well. Just say loudly: "countries with a lot of democracy, such as Switzerland, have lower quality of life than countries with no democracy, such as North Korea, because democracy makes people selfishly destroy the society, while a dictator will optimize for long-term prosperity" if that happens to be your belief with the symbols replaced by the corresponding substance.

LW has a rare density of Libertarian leaning people, who generally aren't the types to sit silently and assent. Failing to ideologically bully, the Left resorted to pressure to just not talk about politics, which achieves the main goal of silencing the Unbelievers.

Reality check: is Eliezer supposed to be that leftist bully who oppresses the rare libertarians at LW? I'm asking because he wrote the articles about anticipated experiences, tabooing words, affective spirals, et cetera. Do you perhaps believe that the techniques described in the Sequences are merely a clever ploy to oppress heretics?

Because to me it seems like you simply refuse to apply some general techniques to a specific set of beliefs... for pretty much the same reason why a theist would object against using an Occam's Razor to religion.