on lesswrong, when commenting, a higher value comment is something that adds something new that the post doesnt have.
however, its harder to do this positively in a way that agrees with the post than it is to disagree with the post and say a reason why you disagree.
this biases posts that are just plainly good and dont have much worth critiquing to either just get a bunch of strawman critiques, false critiques, or little to no interaction at all.
Looking through the first 10-20 of my top-voted comments (excluding quick takes), more than half of them don’t meaningfully disagree with the post to which they’re responding. Rather, they further develop something in the post (example), bring in some additional context (example), or just “express”/suggest something (example, example).
I’ve thought about this a lot and I eventually decided the best solution was to “react more”. For whatever reason, I’ve always thought of reactions as kind of cringe. But I think they’re the best way we have to fight this bias. I’ve come around to Less Wrong’s extremely extensive list of reactions and I think we should all consider intentionally trying to increase our use of them.
Sometimes this makes me mildly sad as a comment-reader. When I read a good post, I want to also read some good follow-up comments, but there often aren’t any.
Agreeing gives status to the author, disagreeing tries to give status to you.
A good way to agree is e.g. some kind of “yes, and”, where you add another example the original insight applies to. But that requires having a good example that the author missed.
Sometimes I do the low-status thing and just write a comment praising the article, especially if I see the discussion is either empty or that kind that you described.
However, that’s not the only reason I might hesitate to post my agreement; I might prefer only to post when I have something to add, which would more usually be disagreement. Since I don’t only vote up things I agree with, perhaps I should start hacking on the feature that allows you to say “6 members marked their broad agreement with this point (click for list of members)”.
I notice that both reactions and the agreement voting axis exist now, but not for posts as a whole (you do still have inline reactions for agreeing with specific parts)…
(I don’t have an opinion on the object level here that’s worth expressing; I’m just commenting to surface the historical connection, wiki-gnome-like.)
also, lesswrong is largely a place for entertainment, posts that aren’t offensive but are entertaining and make the reader feel smarter for having read it, get more interaction and upvotes than things that are actually helpful/useful, etc—and because its browsed by neel nanda, richard ngo, etc type, it’ll get seen by them and as long as its not too repulsive to them, just that its getting this high number and lots of interactions and also is entertaining, will mean that it has a higher chance of getting read and then promoted and other stuff.
Also, the best thing for lesswrong posting is to have something in the post that *could* and is *likely* to be misinterpreted and called out by someone who isnt super bright, but is confident, but be able to slam them down decisively and show that you were clearly correct all along and look really smart—esp if after reading your critique people go ‘oh yeah, thats obviously true, they’re so right, this couldn’t be interpreted any other way’
on lesswrong, when commenting, a higher value comment is something that adds something new that the post doesnt have.
however, its harder to do this positively in a way that agrees with the post than it is to disagree with the post and say a reason why you disagree.
this biases posts that are just plainly good and dont have much worth critiquing to either just get a bunch of strawman critiques, false critiques, or little to no interaction at all.
Looking through the first 10-20 of my top-voted comments (excluding quick takes), more than half of them don’t meaningfully disagree with the post to which they’re responding. Rather, they further develop something in the post (example), bring in some additional context (example), or just “express”/suggest something (example, example).
I’ve thought about this a lot and I eventually decided the best solution was to “react more”. For whatever reason, I’ve always thought of reactions as kind of cringe. But I think they’re the best way we have to fight this bias. I’ve come around to Less Wrong’s extremely extensive list of reactions and I think we should all consider intentionally trying to increase our use of them.
yes, I agree, was thinking of this last night as the thing that lesswrong has atm to go against this bias
Sometimes this makes me mildly sad as a comment-reader. When I read a good post, I want to also read some good follow-up comments, but there often aren’t any.
“filter by butterfly ideas”
Agreeing gives status to the author, disagreeing tries to give status to you.
A good way to agree is e.g. some kind of “yes, and”, where you add another example the original insight applies to. But that requires having a good example that the author missed.
Sometimes I do the low-status thing and just write a comment praising the article, especially if I see the discussion is either empty or that kind that you described.
From the archives, targeted more broadly than what you said but with many comments on this topic: “Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate”. From the top rated comment, dated 17 years ago:
I notice that both reactions and the agreement voting axis exist now, but not for posts as a whole (you do still have inline reactions for agreeing with specific parts)…
(I don’t have an opinion on the object level here that’s worth expressing; I’m just commenting to surface the historical connection, wiki-gnome-like.)
also, lesswrong is largely a place for entertainment, posts that aren’t offensive but are entertaining and make the reader feel smarter for having read it, get more interaction and upvotes than things that are actually helpful/useful, etc—and because its browsed by neel nanda, richard ngo, etc type, it’ll get seen by them and as long as its not too repulsive to them, just that its getting this high number and lots of interactions and also is entertaining, will mean that it has a higher chance of getting read and then promoted and other stuff.
Also, the best thing for lesswrong posting is to have something in the post that *could* and is *likely* to be misinterpreted and called out by someone who isnt super bright, but is confident, but be able to slam them down decisively and show that you were clearly correct all along and look really smart—esp if after reading your critique people go ‘oh yeah, thats obviously true, they’re so right, this couldn’t be interpreted any other way’