Comment on Is Scott Alexander bad at math?

Fri, 08 May 2015 12:42:53 GMT

First of all, commenters don't owe you to be anyone and they would rightly complain.

This sounds like a deontological argument. You're talking about responsibilities (or lack thereof) and rights.

It's possible that Jonah is operating within a consequentialist framework... that is, he believes that a culture of not griping about well written and informative posts (like his) will lead to the valuable consequence of more such posts being written. (By delivering social punishment, in the form of complaints, to people who make quality LW contributions, one works against the public good of quality LW contributions.)

It's also possible that if Jonah adjusts his tone, it will could lead to positive consequences like people not getting annoyed by the feeling that he is lording it over them or whatever. It doesn't annoy me much when Jonah lets me know that he's an expert; I shrug and await the next post in his sequence; but I recognize that others may feel differently.

Personally, I think both these hypotheses are true.

Discuss