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TimS comments on Don't Get Offended - LessWrong
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I'm not sure I agree. This discussion is one example of what seems to me to be a representative pattern of behavior. Obviously, I am at substantial risk of mind-killed biased perception, but it seems to me that the local consensus is basically:
That has the effect of cutting out the extremists on both ends, but also cuts moderate-extremist social change activists out without addressing their counterparts on the other end of the continuum.
Behaviors that punish +5, +4, and -5 (on the continuum of positions) will skew what is said aloud so that it appears to outsiders that the local consensus is different than what is actually is. Much like the complaint about political correctness, that punishing +5, -4, and -5 will change what newcomers see as acceptable.
My position is that the quality of discussion on that particular subject is a disgrace that I don't want to be associated with and would prefer not to have to put up with here. Years of experience suggest improvement is unlikely and that suppressing the conversation is the least harmful outcome. I don't think I'm alone in that position (and so challenge your proposed 'consensus').
If newcomers were to see no conversation about moralizing sexual dynamics at all then they may be given the impression that this isn't a good place to moralize about sexual dynamics. That would seem to be the best outcome that is realistically attainable.
You'd like a venue that talks about how to figure out what object-level moral injunctions to put onto a super-intelligent artificial entity, but doesn't talk about how to talk about how one large group of humans treats another large group of human? I'm sympathetic to your disgust with the quality of discourse, but I think you are asking for the impossible.
Separately, it isn't that hard to find examples of disparate treatment of various positions on the continuum, independent of how extreme they are. In other words, there are lots of -4 discussion posts and comment that are well received, while there are fewer +4 discussion posts and comments equally well received. So even if the consensus you wanted were possible, I don't think it is actually being implemented.
I'd expect people's ideas of where the zero point is to vary considerably, mainly thanks to selection effects: on average, people tend to be exposed mainly to political ideas similar to their own, partly due to political tribalism and partly because of geographical, age, and social class differences. That gives us a skewed local mean, and selection bias research tells us that people are not very good at compensating for that kind of thing even when they know it exists.
On average, therefore, we'd expect people with strong opinions on both sides of the aisle to feel that their side is meeting with a slightly harsher reception on the margins. That seems to explain most perceived political bias in this forum pretty well; taking the last poll results into account, if any mainstream position has an unusually hard time on the margins I'd expect it to be traditionalist conservatism. (Disclaimer: I am not a traditionalist.)
Yes. "Who--whom?" is not the sort of moral question I would like to discuss here.
Ideally I would like a venue where I just prevent people from slinging bullshit. That isn't an option available to me. An option that is available is to make use of my trivial "downvote" and "make comments" powers to very slightly influence reality in the direction of less bullshit slinging contests.