What does you data show beyond a failure to relinquish all the memes?
This is naturally the default explanation that our society uses for such results, it seems plausible but why are we so quick and so confident to jump to it as the explanation? Do I even need to point out that other explanations seem just as plausible?
For example the model of attraction build by the PUA community predicts this result. Also basic economics suggests that if the partners specialize in task they are more productive, maybe we aren’t seeing traditional marriage roles validated as much as economics. And why don’t more traditional couples suffer more from residual patriarchal memes? Shouldn’t the people in those relationship have even more of them than the society at large? Based on the evidence we are just as justified saying that they are happier because they have more patriarchal memes than the norm.
Wait am I just getting down voted for arguing for patriarchy as plausibly not evil? People not wearing their rationalist hats and voting based on the bottom line they wrote before thinking about the arguments they are evaluating is lame. Really lame.
I find it hilarious I didn’t have this problem when doing devil’s advocacy for infanticide or slavery.. but traditional marriage roles? Wowjustwowhowcanheargueforthat! Ewww! That’s like something an inbred redneck would say. Onward social justice, lets end the war on women!
I strongly disagree with a lot of your argument, but the level of downvoting here is still interesting. I suspect that this is happening for three reasons: 1) The belief in question is as you correctly note associated with some people who still exist and are pretty low status. 2) Unlike something like infanticide or slavery, there’s a perceived chance that this sort of thing might actually go back to being this way (see the existence of people mentioned in 1) and thus this feels to people like it is much closer to an actual political mindkilling issue. (Robin Hanson might say that infanticide is far but patriarchy is near.) 3) There’s been some problems in the past with a perception that there’s a cadre on LW of people who have essentially implied that women are of less moral worth than men (I can point to multiple threads where this occurred) and so people are downvoting either due to the association with those threads, or due to a perceived need to protect LW’s reputation.
It is possible that the arguments being made are simply weaker than those favoring infanticde and slavery, and they do seem to be somwhat weaker, but not so so much weaker as to explain by themselves the size of the downvotes.
Yes, everyone is downvoting you for stupid, non-rational reasons that you fully understand, and so you don’t need to consider the implicit rebuke or indeed think about this any further at all.
I think about this stuff quit a lot and generally seek out strong counterarguments. I dislike people down voting a comment I’m certain stands up to the level of discourse here while not exposing their own reasoning on the matter.
If you think I don’t have a good idea about the level of discourse here, well then people should have been down voting me much more aggressively over the past few years I’ve spent in this community, people seem to have generally liked my contributions.
My comment complaining over this might was in hindsight perhaps inappropriate and I’ve retracted it, however the reason I’m not as phased as I once was by down votes is because I think the quality of the LessWrong community is slowly degrading and only aggressive counter measures can stop it.
There’s a crowd that is mind-killed, disagrees with your general philosophy, and down-votes you basically at random when you articulate it—without regard for quality of a particular post or even if you are really trying to make controversial assertions?
Hey, metoo! :) But my crowd and your crowd don’t seem to agree very much. :( Maybe both sides should stop trying to silently suppress contrary views? Nah, that would never work.
Right, I didn’t mean to imply my situation was unique. I see exactly what you mean and I think we used to have less of that. It is one of the indicators of the lower quality of discussion I think I’m seeing.
1) My sense was that my side was more the victim of this than your side—in this community. (Insert obvious caveats about self-mindkilledness).
2) More importantly, I think the particular tactics you used in this thread were unlikely to be effective. The meta-level concerns about this community don’t fit in an object-level discussion of a particular topic. I forget if you are on the LW-more-inclusive or LW-more-exclusive camp, but I think this is a good analysis of the issue.
Why? There are mutually contradictory philosophical positions at play. Should Eliezer refuse to think of his anti-philosophical zombies position as a “side”?
I readily acknowledge the significant risk of identity entanglement (aka mind-killed). But other than that, what harm is there is acknowledging that certain positions are mutually exclusive?
SIAI needed to improve as an organization, so they brought in people who they thought could run a successful non-profit. What they got was a better non-profit plus the whole accompanying spectrum of philanthropy status divas, professional beggars and related hangers-on.
Most of the original thinkers have left, replaced by those who believe in thinking, but only for fashionable thoughts.
philanthropy status divas, professional beggars and related hangers-on
those who believe in thinking, but only for fashionable thoughts
Okay, so would you kindly point to some awful, worthless posts/comments by those awful, worthless people? And explain what makes them so awful and worthless? So that the right-thinking users can learn to avoid them?
Or, if you don’t have anything specific in mind, would you at least cease insulting the community?
Have not downvoted you (or anyone else) yet in this thread, but am downvoting this comment of yours now. Feel free to project whatever reasons you want onto me. They’ll probably be wrong.
Have not downvoted you (or anyone else) yet in this thread, but am downvoting this comment of yours now. Feel free to project whatever reasons you want onto me. They’ll probably be wrong.
I expect Konkvistador to be able to speculate a list of reasons that quickly exhausts all the acceptable reasons to make a publicly announced downvote. Indeed, he has already listed the most notable one. That being the case your prediction must imply either inaccurate insult of Konkvistador or that you are publicly announcing an undesirable motivation for your downvoting.
This is naturally the default explanation that our society uses for such results, it seems plausible but why are we so quick and so confident to jump to it as the explanation? Do I even need to point out that other explanations seem just as plausible?
For example the model of attraction build by the PUA community predicts this result. Also basic economics suggests that if the partners specialize in task they are more productive, maybe we aren’t seeing traditional marriage roles validated as much as economics. And why don’t more traditional couples suffer more from residual patriarchal memes? Shouldn’t the people in those relationship have even more of them than the society at large? Based on the evidence we are just as justified saying that they are happier because they have more patriarchal memes than the norm.
Why are we quick to blame the predecessor? Trick question?
Wait am I just getting down voted for arguing for patriarchy as plausibly not evil? People not wearing their rationalist hats and voting based on the bottom line they wrote before thinking about the arguments they are evaluating is lame. Really lame.
I find it hilarious I didn’t have this problem when doing devil’s advocacy for infanticide or slavery.. but traditional marriage roles? Wowjustwowhowcanheargueforthat! Ewww! That’s like something an inbred redneck would say. Onward social justice, lets end the war on women!
I strongly disagree with a lot of your argument, but the level of downvoting here is still interesting. I suspect that this is happening for three reasons: 1) The belief in question is as you correctly note associated with some people who still exist and are pretty low status. 2) Unlike something like infanticide or slavery, there’s a perceived chance that this sort of thing might actually go back to being this way (see the existence of people mentioned in 1) and thus this feels to people like it is much closer to an actual political mindkilling issue. (Robin Hanson might say that infanticide is far but patriarchy is near.) 3) There’s been some problems in the past with a perception that there’s a cadre on LW of people who have essentially implied that women are of less moral worth than men (I can point to multiple threads where this occurred) and so people are downvoting either due to the association with those threads, or due to a perceived need to protect LW’s reputation.
It is possible that the arguments being made are simply weaker than those favoring infanticde and slavery, and they do seem to be somwhat weaker, but not so so much weaker as to explain by themselves the size of the downvotes.
Yes, everyone is downvoting you for stupid, non-rational reasons that you fully understand, and so you don’t need to consider the implicit rebuke or indeed think about this any further at all.
I think about this stuff quit a lot and generally seek out strong counterarguments. I dislike people down voting a comment I’m certain stands up to the level of discourse here while not exposing their own reasoning on the matter.
If you think I don’t have a good idea about the level of discourse here, well then people should have been down voting me much more aggressively over the past few years I’ve spent in this community, people seem to have generally liked my contributions.
My comment complaining over this might was in hindsight perhaps inappropriate and I’ve retracted it, however the reason I’m not as phased as I once was by down votes is because I think the quality of the LessWrong community is slowly degrading and only aggressive counter measures can stop it.
There’s a crowd that is mind-killed, disagrees with your general philosophy, and down-votes you basically at random when you articulate it—without regard for quality of a particular post or even if you are really trying to make controversial assertions?
Hey, me too! :)
But my crowd and your crowd don’t seem to agree very much. :(
Maybe both sides should stop trying to silently suppress contrary views?
Nah, that would never work.
Right, I didn’t mean to imply my situation was unique. I see exactly what you mean and I think we used to have less of that. It is one of the indicators of the lower quality of discussion I think I’m seeing.
Two points:
1) My sense was that my side was more the victim of this than your side—in this community. (Insert obvious caveats about self-mindkilledness).
2) More importantly, I think the particular tactics you used in this thread were unlikely to be effective. The meta-level concerns about this community don’t fit in an object-level discussion of a particular topic. I forget if you are on the LW-more-inclusive or LW-more-exclusive camp, but I think this is a good analysis of the issue.
My sense is the opposite.
I prefer not to think of “sides” in this context.
Why? There are mutually contradictory philosophical positions at play. Should Eliezer refuse to think of his anti-philosophical zombies position as a “side”?
I readily acknowledge the significant risk of identity entanglement (aka mind-killed). But other than that, what harm is there is acknowledging that certain positions are mutually exclusive?
SIAI needed to improve as an organization, so they brought in people who they thought could run a successful non-profit. What they got was a better non-profit plus the whole accompanying spectrum of philanthropy status divas, professional beggars and related hangers-on.
Most of the original thinkers have left, replaced by those who believe in thinking, but only for fashionable thoughts.
Okay, so would you kindly point to some awful, worthless posts/comments by those awful, worthless people? And explain what makes them so awful and worthless? So that the right-thinking users can learn to avoid them?
Or, if you don’t have anything specific in mind, would you at least cease insulting the community?
No
Now you feel the feels that I feel all the time when I’m ideological on LW!
Have not downvoted you (or anyone else) yet in this thread, but am downvoting this comment of yours now. Feel free to project whatever reasons you want onto me. They’ll probably be wrong.
Disincentivize whining about down votes?
I expect Konkvistador to be able to speculate a list of reasons that quickly exhausts all the acceptable reasons to make a publicly announced downvote. Indeed, he has already listed the most notable one. That being the case your prediction must imply either inaccurate insult of Konkvistador or that you are publicly announcing an undesirable motivation for your downvoting.
(ie. Downvoted for poorly calibrated snark!)
Yeah, that last sentence was not appropriate, so your downvote is. Lest I leave you all people in suspense my complete list of reasons was:
Disincentivize whining about downvotes
Disincentivize sarcasm
Disincentivize uncharitably interpreting the actions of other people.