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In my opinion, the problem wasn't the topic per se, but how the author approached it:
comments in every Open Thread on the same topic, zero visible learning.
Sure, I think that was annoying. But it's not the stated reason for the ban.
I... what? As I understand the comment, he wanted to ban sex outside marriage. Describing that as "women should be distributed to men they don't want sex with" seems ridiculously exaggerated.
I agree that his one-issue thing was tiresome, and perhaps there is some argument for making "being boring and often off-topic" a bannable offense in itself. But this moderation action seems poorly thought through.
Edit: digging through his comment history finds this comment, where he writes it would be better to marry daughters off as young virgins. So I guess he did hold the view Nancy ascribed to him, even if it was not in evidence in the comment she linked to.
Also, "monogamy versus hypergamy" has been discussed on Less Wrong since the dawn of time. See e.g. this post and discussion in comments, from 2009. Deciding now that this topic is impermissible crimethink seems like a pretty drastic narrowing of allowed thoughts.
In response to
Open thread, Oct. 5 - Oct. 11, 2015
I have banned advancedatheist. While he's been tiresome, I find that I have more tolerance for nastiness than some, but this recent comment was the last straw. I've found that I can tolerate bigotry a lot better than I can tolerate bigoted policy proposals, and that comment was altogether too close to suggesting that women should be distributed to men they don't want sex with.
I... what? As I understand the comment, he wanted to ban sex outside marriage. Describing that as "women should be distributed to men they don't want sex with" seems ridiculously exaggerated.
I agree that his one-issue thing was tiresome, and perhaps there is some argument for making "being boring and often off-topic" a bannable offense in itself. But this moderation action seems poorly thought through.
Edit: digging through his comment history finds this comment, where he writes it would be better to marry daughters off as young virgins. So I guess he did hold the view Nancy ascribed to him, even if it was not in evidence in the comment she linked to.
Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie. I thought the space opera genre was dead. I spoke too soon (though some would call it literary scifi instead). Most enjoyable science fiction I've read in years, blasted through it in two days.
The main character is the last remaining fragment of a troop transport ship from the expansionist imperial Radch, which has absorbed a large fraction of the human diaspora at a time in which most people think about the home world of humanity the way most people think about the finer points of australopith ecology today. Troop transports transport 'ancillaries' - Human bodies under their control. There is wireless hardware in their heads that moves information but that's not really the mode of control. Ancillaries have also undergone what can be called an 'ego transplant' such that their sense of self is the same as that of the (intelligent) ship. The ship and all its ancillaries share an 'I' and act accordingly even when communication is cut off and coordination is difficult, much like split brain patients. A ship is nearly completely destroyed in an act of treachery, leaving only one living ancillary bearing its identity.
Things I loved (which may or may not do it for others):
Mythology and religion and culture galore, from many long separated worlds and from societies that have lived in space for just as long (to quote a friend, "i love how the book manages to get across how simultaneously pretty and ugly Radch culture is").
Playing with language, with different things differently able to be expressed with different connotations in different languages and the main language spoken not having gendered pronouns (all being shown in English as 'she' when that language is spoken, and the main character having trouble with gendered languages and gender in general).
One of the strongest evocations of place and setting I have seen in scifi.
A narrator that doesn't understand their own mind that well and is frequently in denial, forcing a show don't tell style and reading between the lines.
All characters with rather extended sensoriums and communication options compared to humans today via various enhancements and implants as a matter of course.
The Lord of the Radch, a being using ancillary-style ego manipulation and wireless connectivity to maintain thousands of bodies across the empire in an asynchronous, yet still remarkably unified self for thousands of years despite any one body lasting only 200 or so. Identity is played with extensively throughout.
The ending is a bit rushed. Here's hoping the sequel is good, it just arrived in the mail.
The ending is a bit rushed. Here's hoping the sequel is good, it just arrived in the mail.
I thought the sequel was more boring. The structure of the books doesn't really work very well as a series, I feel. The things that I found most appealing about Justice were the new kind of narrator (in the flashbacks, when the same events are described from multiple viewpoints of the same character), and the gradual puzzle of figuring out how the universe works. But at the end of Justice that's all over, there is just a single ancillary left, and the whodunnit-mystery has been explained. So then Sword is a lot less novel, just another space opera...
In response to
Stupid Questions September 2015
Has anyone in the world published their 23andme data openly?
I suspect how reader's respond to my anecdote about Eliezer will fall along party lines, so to speak.
Which is kind of the point of the whole post. How one responds to the criticism shouldn't be a function of one's loyalty to Eliezer. Especially when su3su2u1 explicitly isn't just "making up most of" his criticism. Yes, his series of review-posts are snarky, but he does point out legitimate science errors. That he chooses to enjoy HPMOR via (c) rather than (a) shouldn't have any bearing on the true-or-false-ness of his criticism.
I've read su3su2u1's reviews. I agree with them. I also really enjoyed HPMOR. This doesn't actually require cognitive dissonance.
(I do agree, though, that snarkiness isn't really useful in trying to get people to listen to criticism, and often just backfires)
Explanation here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/mo0/open_thread_aug_24_aug_30/couo
I feel this only raises more questions. :)
In response to
Proper posture for mental arts
The description of the use of posture in aikido is super interesting!
I'm a little worried that analogizing "mental arts" to martial arts might lead the imagination in the wrong direction--it evokes ideas like "flexible" or "balanced" etc. But thinking about mental states when I get a lot of research done, the biggest one by far is when I'm trying to prove some annoying guy wrong on an inconsequential comment thread on tumblr. If I could only harness that motivation, I'd be set for life. Thinking about aikido practitioners primes me for things like "zen-like and serene", not "peeved and petty".
In response to
Words per person year and intellectual rigor
Upvoted, but mostly for the first paragraph and photo. :)
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I was just rereading Three Worlds Collide today and noticed that my feelings about the ending have changed over the last few years. It used to be obvious to me that the "status quo" ending was better. Now I feel that the "super happy" ending is better, and it's not just a matter of feelings - it's somehow axiomatically better, based on what I know about decision theory.
Namely, the story says that the super happies are smarter and understand humanity's utility function better, and also that they are moral and wouldn't offer a deal unless it was beneficial according to both utility functions being merged (not just according to their value of happiness). Under these conditions, accepting the deal seems like the right thing to do.
I guess whether it is beneficial or not depends on what you compare to? They say,
So they are aiming for satisficing rather than maximizing utility: according to all three before-the-change moralities, the post-change state of affairs should be acceptable, but not necessarily optimal. Consider these possibilities:
1) Baby-eaters are modified to no longer eat sentient babies; humans are unchanged; Superhappies like art.
2) Baby-eaters are modified to no longer eat sentient babies; humans are pain-free and eat babies; Superhappies like art.
3) Baby-eaters, humans, and Superhappies are all unchanged.
I think the intention of the author is that, according to pre-change human morality, (1) is the optimal choice, (2) is bad but acceptable, and (3) is unacceptable. The superhappies in the story claim that (2) is the only alternative that is acceptable to all three pre-change moralities. So the super-happy ending is beneficial in the sense that it avoids (3), but it's a "bad" ending because it fails to get (1).