It has a reasonable argument at its core: giving government benefits to low-income workers effectively means subsidizing the companies that pay low wages (and there are huge companies profiting from this). That’s an irony, because even the voters who want to give money to low-income people usually don’t want to support companies that profit by paying low wages. Giving money to low-income people regardless of their employment (via basic income or otherwise) would have a similar result, except for requiring people to work for companies that profit by paying low wages.
It has a mindkilling title: “evil” is a loaded word, and even if we insist on using it, why not use it instead on politicians and voters who enable this behavior? The problem is, each tribe has their preferences about who should be called evil, therefore the usage of the word necessarily follows the party line.
The mindkilling effect of politics is not just that it’s difficult to write a reasonable article about politics… but that even if you succeed to write a moderately reasonable article on a political topic, it is still very likely to cause unreasonable comments in the discussion. -- This is why we need more strict criteria for political articles. As it is, it is in my opinion barely okay for the Discussion, and unfit for Main. I upvoted it in the Discussion, because I appreciate the information (I am not American, so I learned something new about Walmart, which may help me understand the American culture better), but would downvote it if it moved to Main.
Yes, politics, boo hiss. In my defense, the topic of this post cuts across usual tribal affiliations (I write it as a liberal criticizing other liberals), and has a couple strong tie-ins with main LessWrong topics
This reminds me of an advice for authors: don’t tell me, show me. Specifically: write an article in a way that does not scream your tribal affiliations, and then you will not have to excuse yourself.
it is still very likely to cause unreasonable comments in the discussion
Is that prediction correct? I think that this thread is full of non-mindkilled comments. The only really bad comments have been downvoted appropriately.
Now the question is, how much this is reproducible. That is, how much of the quality of the discussion can be attributed to the fact that discussing politics is a taboo here, so people breaking the taboo are extra careful because they know they will be judged more ciritically. Also, the website policy until now may have filtered away those people who enjoy mindkilling debates; having the political debates more often might invite them back.
But compared with the typical internet political discussion, this one is extraordinarily reasonable. (I also appreciate fixing the title.) I still feel afraid that having this kind of atricles more often would make things worse. But maybe we already passed some critical treshold where the existing community is sane enough to downvote the mindkilling comments even when their author is “fighting for the same side”.
EDIT: Another thing that I am afraid of, is that after writing a political article arguing (sanely) for one tribe, people from the opposing tribe would feel an urge to write an article (or preferably two articles) describing the situation from their tribe’s point of view. Which would lead to an arms race in the number of articles, and the quality would gradually go down.
Giving money to low-income people regardless of their employment (via basic income or otherwise) would have a similar result, except for requiring people to work for companies that profit by paying low wages.
And say how depressing it is that so many people in this community seem to have given up on doing better.
Better at… wasting time? (I don’t know who you think is better off having the opinion “Grayson and Sanders are wrong about Walmart” than the opinion “I don’t care what Grayson and Sanders think about Walmart.” Anyone I can think of who benefits from having that opinion can easily determine so by social cues from people they want to impress, without having to think it through.)
Note: I didn’t mind it in Discussion at all and thought it was interesting. I am of the opinion that comments + discussion should not be heavily self-censored. However, I second the opinion that it shouldn’t be in Main. I’m also a relatively new user (first handle was mid 2012) so you can take my opinions on what belongs in Main with that in mind.
I think the rule of thumb is, that a post should possess at least one of the following qualities:
2) About instrumental rationality (self improvement, happiness, willpower, organization, social behavior, etc)
3) Furthering the Reader’s Interests (Effective Altruism, textbook recommendations, etc)
4) Meta, announcements, and notifications about things of interest to LW or closely affiliated with LW.
--
I think politics can fall into any of these. News (News! not opinions!) about some political activity or press release relating to the Singularity institute or other prominant figures on LW would fall into 4. An analysis about whether or not voting is rational would fall into 3. Descriptions of how political groups behave would fall into 2. The psychology of politically induced biases, how to do science for economic policy, etc… would fall into 1.
So your post is interesting (for me, because I follow politics), not particularly mind-killing, etc...but it’s not meeting the criteria for making me more rational or furthering my interests. It’s not simply that it’s about politics, boo on talking about politics, etc.
I can’t actually do anything about the Wal-Mart meme. Knowing about it doesn’t further my instrumental goals, nor does it improve my epistemic skill, nor can it really effect my behavior or thinking in any way. I might get hedons from reading and Learning about a Cool Thing, but that’s moving away from the stated purpose of Lesswrong.
Edit: Looking over other posts in main, I can see that there are quite a few other which did not meet my stated criteria (including some by prominent posters like Eliezer and katydee). So I suppose my stated criteria don’t actually describe things as they actually are or how they are intended to be, but how i think they aught to be.
This post is almost the epitome of what I don’t want to see on LessWrong, Discussion or not.
EDIT: This post was moved to Main after I made this comment. This makes me like it even less.
It has a reasonable argument at its core: giving government benefits to low-income workers effectively means subsidizing the companies that pay low wages (and there are huge companies profiting from this). That’s an irony, because even the voters who want to give money to low-income people usually don’t want to support companies that profit by paying low wages. Giving money to low-income people regardless of their employment (via basic income or otherwise) would have a similar result, except for requiring people to work for companies that profit by paying low wages.
It has a mindkilling title: “evil” is a loaded word, and even if we insist on using it, why not use it instead on politicians and voters who enable this behavior? The problem is, each tribe has their preferences about who should be called evil, therefore the usage of the word necessarily follows the party line.
The mindkilling effect of politics is not just that it’s difficult to write a reasonable article about politics… but that even if you succeed to write a moderately reasonable article on a political topic, it is still very likely to cause unreasonable comments in the discussion. -- This is why we need more strict criteria for political articles. As it is, it is in my opinion barely okay for the Discussion, and unfit for Main. I upvoted it in the Discussion, because I appreciate the information (I am not American, so I learned something new about Walmart, which may help me understand the American culture better), but would downvote it if it moved to Main.
This reminds me of an advice for authors: don’t tell me, show me. Specifically: write an article in a way that does not scream your tribal affiliations, and then you will not have to excuse yourself.
Oh, and another thing:
Is that prediction correct? I think that this thread is full of non-mindkilled comments. The only really bad comments have been downvoted appropriately.
Yes, you are correct and I am surprised.
Now the question is, how much this is reproducible. That is, how much of the quality of the discussion can be attributed to the fact that discussing politics is a taboo here, so people breaking the taboo are extra careful because they know they will be judged more ciritically. Also, the website policy until now may have filtered away those people who enjoy mindkilling debates; having the political debates more often might invite them back.
But compared with the typical internet political discussion, this one is extraordinarily reasonable. (I also appreciate fixing the title.) I still feel afraid that having this kind of atricles more often would make things worse. But maybe we already passed some critical treshold where the existing community is sane enough to downvote the mindkilling comments even when their author is “fighting for the same side”.
EDIT: Another thing that I am afraid of, is that after writing a political article arguing (sanely) for one tribe, people from the opposing tribe would feel an urge to write an article (or preferably two articles) describing the situation from their tribe’s point of view. Which would lead to an arms race in the number of articles, and the quality would gradually go down.
That’s a big “except”.
“Evil” seems a fair description of how some people seem to view Walmart, though I’ll probably remove it anyway on re-write.
As for the rest, I’m just going to drop a link to what I’ve previously said about “politics as mindkiller.” (And say how depressing it is that so many people in this community seem to have given up on doing better.)
Better at… wasting time? (I don’t know who you think is better off having the opinion “Grayson and Sanders are wrong about Walmart” than the opinion “I don’t care what Grayson and Sanders think about Walmart.” Anyone I can think of who benefits from having that opinion can easily determine so by social cues from people they want to impress, without having to think it through.)
I’ve seen what you’ve previously said on this matter—suffice it to say that I disagree. The fact that this is now in Main makes me sad for LessWrong.
Argument?
Note: I didn’t mind it in Discussion at all and thought it was interesting. I am of the opinion that comments + discussion should not be heavily self-censored. However, I second the opinion that it shouldn’t be in Main. I’m also a relatively new user (first handle was mid 2012) so you can take my opinions on what belongs in Main with that in mind.
I think the rule of thumb is, that a post should possess at least one of the following qualities:
1) About epistemic rationality (ontology, epistemics, ethics, AI, bias reduction, scientific method, semantics, etc)
2) About instrumental rationality (self improvement, happiness, willpower, organization, social behavior, etc)
3) Furthering the Reader’s Interests (Effective Altruism, textbook recommendations, etc)
4) Meta, announcements, and notifications about things of interest to LW or closely affiliated with LW.
--
I think politics can fall into any of these. News (News! not opinions!) about some political activity or press release relating to the Singularity institute or other prominant figures on LW would fall into 4. An analysis about whether or not voting is rational would fall into 3. Descriptions of how political groups behave would fall into 2. The psychology of politically induced biases, how to do science for economic policy, etc… would fall into 1.
So your post is interesting (for me, because I follow politics), not particularly mind-killing, etc...but it’s not meeting the criteria for making me more rational or furthering my interests. It’s not simply that it’s about politics, boo on talking about politics, etc.
I can’t actually do anything about the Wal-Mart meme. Knowing about it doesn’t further my instrumental goals, nor does it improve my epistemic skill, nor can it really effect my behavior or thinking in any way. I might get hedons from reading and Learning about a Cool Thing, but that’s moving away from the stated purpose of Lesswrong.
Edit: Looking over other posts in main, I can see that there are quite a few other which did not meet my stated criteria (including some by prominent posters like Eliezer and katydee). So I suppose my stated criteria don’t actually describe things as they actually are or how they are intended to be, but how i think they aught to be.