This interests me. I haven’t been around here for very long, so if there are any particular incidents that have occurred in the past, I wouldn’t be aware of them (sans the basilisk, of course, because that whole thing just blew up). Why does LW have such a mixed reputation? I would chalk it up to the “Internet forum” effect, because most mainstream researchers probably don’t trust Internet forums, but MIRI seems to have the same thing going on, so it can’t (just) be that. Is it just due to the weirdness, possibly causing LW/MIRI to be viewed as crankish? Or something else?
Many people (specifically, people over at RationalWiki, and probably elsewhere as well) see the community as being insular, or as being a Yudkowsky Personality Cult, or think that some of the weirder-sounding ideas widely espoused here (cryonics, FAI, etc) “might benefit from a better grounding in reality”.
Still others reflexively write LW off based on the use of fanfiction (a word of dread and derision in many circles) to recruit members.
Even the jargon derived from the Sequences may put some people off. Despite the staunch avoidance of hot-button politics, they still import a few lesser controversies. For example, there still exist people who outright reject Bayesian probability, and there are many more who see Bayes’ theorem as a tool that is valid only in a very narrow domain. Brazenly disregarding their opinion can be seen as haughty, even if the maths are on your side.
Out on my parts of the internet, a major reason to reject LWisms is because they are perceived as coming from a “Silicon Valley tribe” that does not share values with the majority of people (i.e. similar to the attitude of the newsblog (?) Pando, which regularly skewers tech startups). The libertarians claiming to be “apolitical”, and the neoreactionaries, do not help this perception at all. (Although discussing more of this is probably unwise because politics SPIDERS.)
I wonder how much of that negative view comes from the two or three people on RW who in the past have invested a lot of time and energy describing LW in the most uncharitable way, successfully priming many readers.
There are many websites on the internet with a dominant author, specific slang, or weird ideas. People usually ignore them, if they don’t like them.
I am not saying that LW is flawless, only that it is difficult to distinguish between (a) genuine flaws of LW and (b) successfuly anti-LW memes which started for random reasons. Both of them are something people will complain about, but in one case they had to be taught to complain.
I wonder how much of that negative view comes from the two or three people on RW who in the past have invested a lot of time and energy describing LW in the most uncharitable way, successfully priming many readers.
If this is true, or a major factor, then creating a new website is unlikely to be the solution. There is no reason to assume the anti-fans won’t just write the same content about the new website, highlighting “the connection” to LW.
Far removed from starting with a “clean slate”, such a migration could even provide for a new negative spin on the old narrative and it could be perceived as the anti-fans “winning”, and nothing galvanizes like the (perceived) taste of blood.
Yep. At this moment, we need a strategy, not just how to make a good impression in general (and we have already not optimized for this), but also how to prevent active character assassination.
I am not an expert on this topic. And it probably shouldn’t be debated in public, because, obviously, selective quoting from such debate would be another weapon for the anti-fans. The mere fact that you care about your impression and debate other people’s biases can be spinned very easily.
It’s important to realize that we not only have to make a good impression on Joe the Rational Internet Reader, but also to keep social costs of cooperating with us reasonable low for Joe. At the end, we care not only about Joe’s opinion, but also about opinions of people around him.
This interests me. I haven’t been around here for very long, so if there are any particular incidents that have occurred in the past, I wouldn’t be aware of them (sans the basilisk, of course, because that whole thing just blew up). Why does LW have such a mixed reputation? I would chalk it up to the “Internet forum” effect, because most mainstream researchers probably don’t trust Internet forums, but MIRI seems to have the same thing going on, so it can’t (just) be that. Is it just due to the weirdness, possibly causing LW/MIRI to be viewed as crankish? Or something else?
Many people (specifically, people over at RationalWiki, and probably elsewhere as well) see the community as being insular, or as being a Yudkowsky Personality Cult, or think that some of the weirder-sounding ideas widely espoused here (cryonics, FAI, etc) “might benefit from a better grounding in reality”.
Still others reflexively write LW off based on the use of fanfiction (a word of dread and derision in many circles) to recruit members.
Even the jargon derived from the Sequences may put some people off. Despite the staunch avoidance of hot-button politics, they still import a few lesser controversies. For example, there still exist people who outright reject Bayesian probability, and there are many more who see Bayes’ theorem as a tool that is valid only in a very narrow domain. Brazenly disregarding their opinion can be seen as haughty, even if the maths are on your side.
Out on my parts of the internet, a major reason to reject LWisms is because they are perceived as coming from a “Silicon Valley tribe” that does not share values with the majority of people (i.e. similar to the attitude of the newsblog (?) Pando, which regularly skewers tech startups). The libertarians claiming to be “apolitical”, and the neoreactionaries, do not help this perception at all. (Although discussing more of this is probably unwise because politics SPIDERS.)
Mutant and proud!
:-)
I wonder how much of that negative view comes from the two or three people on RW who in the past have invested a lot of time and energy describing LW in the most uncharitable way, successfully priming many readers.
There are many websites on the internet with a dominant author, specific slang, or weird ideas. People usually ignore them, if they don’t like them.
I am not saying that LW is flawless, only that it is difficult to distinguish between (a) genuine flaws of LW and (b) successfuly anti-LW memes which started for random reasons. Both of them are something people will complain about, but in one case they had to be taught to complain.
If this is true, or a major factor, then creating a new website is unlikely to be the solution. There is no reason to assume the anti-fans won’t just write the same content about the new website, highlighting “the connection” to LW.
Far removed from starting with a “clean slate”, such a migration could even provide for a new negative spin on the old narrative and it could be perceived as the anti-fans “winning”, and nothing galvanizes like the (perceived) taste of blood.
Yep. At this moment, we need a strategy, not just how to make a good impression in general (and we have already not optimized for this), but also how to prevent active character assassination.
I am not an expert on this topic. And it probably shouldn’t be debated in public, because, obviously, selective quoting from such debate would be another weapon for the anti-fans. The mere fact that you care about your impression and debate other people’s biases can be spinned very easily.
It’s important to realize that we not only have to make a good impression on Joe the Rational Internet Reader, but also to keep social costs of cooperating with us reasonable low for Joe. At the end, we care not only about Joe’s opinion, but also about opinions of people around him.