So you getting health related issues as a cause of the viciousness you perpetrate—okay, that’s like repeatedly punching someone and then complaining that your fist has started to hurt.
I read this (from here), smiled and thought, “there’s some karma for you. In no way metaphysical.”
Then, I thought, “we have a literal karma system on this site.” I checked. He has karma in the quadrupedal digits, 75 percent positive. I don’t understand. If XiXiDu was so abusive, why is does he so upvoted? It seems like he must of said things worth saying, perhaps useful critiques. Is the karma system broken (or at least not designed to deal with this sort of thing) or are the accusations not as bad as they seem? Someone explain my confusion.
XiXiDu is generally a smart person and most of his comments are very good. He has this one pet peeve though.
LW karma is not a vote on the person, it’s a collection of the votes on their individual comments. Most of his comments are good. Some of them are… controversial, to put it mildly.
75 percent positive means 25 percent negative. To get a worse outcome, a person would have to be unable to post good comments, or unable to stop bringing the controversial topic everywhere, or unwilling to participate in debates unrelated to the controversial topic. In some situations XiXiDu seems unable to resist, but he usually contributes productively in completely unrelated articles.
XiXiDu is generally a smart person and most of his comments are very good.
XiXiDu has repeatedly claimed that he is not a smart person (unless I have confused him with someone else). (I didn’t believe him but his claim is at least somewhat relevant.)
False humility? Countersignalling? Depression? I don’t want to make an internet diagnosis or mind reading, but from my view these options seem more likely than the hypothesis of low intelligence.
(Unless the context was something like “intelligence lower than extremely high”; i.e. something like “I have IQ 130, but compared with people with IQ 160 I feel stupid”.)
False humility? Countersignalling? Depression? I don’t want to make an internet diagnosis or mind reading, but from my view these options seem more likely than the hypothesis of low intelligence.
From the context I ruled out countersignalling and for what it is worth my impression was that the humility was real, not false. Given that I err on the side of cynical regarding hypocrisy and had found some of XiXiDu’s comments disruptive I give my positive evaluation of Xi’s sincerity some weight.
I agree that the hypothesis of low intelligence is implausible despite the testimony. Addition possible factors I considered:
Specific weakness in intelligence (eg. ADHD, dyslexia or something less common) that produced low self esteem in intelligence despite overall respectable g.
Perfectionistic or obsessive tendencies which would lead to harsh self judgements relative to an unrealistic ideal. (Potentially similar to the kind of tendencies which would cause the idealism failure mode described in the opening post.)
Not realising just how stupid ‘average’ is. (This is a common error. This wasn’t the first time I’ve called ‘bullshit’ on claims to be below average IQ. Associating with highly educated nerds really biases the sample.)
(Unless the context was something like “intelligence lower than extremely high”; i.e. something like “I have IQ 130, but compared with people with IQ 160 I feel stupid”.)
That would have been more accurate, but no, the context ruled that out.
I’m curious whether XiXiDu’s confidence/objective self evaluation has changed over the intervening years. I hope it has.
This seems weird to me. While I acknowledge that there are widespread social stigmas associated with broadcasting your own intelligence, it hardly seems productive to actively downplay your intelligence either. XiXiDu does not strike me as someone who is of average or below-average intelligence—quite the opposite, in fact. So it seems odd that he would choose to “repeatedly [claim] that he is not a smart person”. Is there some advantage to be gained from saying that kind of thing that I’m just not seeing here?
It seemed weird enough to me that it stuck in my memory more clearly than any of his anti-MIRI comments.
XiXiDu does not strike me as someone who is of average or below-average intelligence—quite the opposite, in fact.
I concur.
Is there some advantage to be gained from saying that kind of thing that I’m just not seeing here?
My best guess is an ethical compulsion towards sincere expression of reality as he perceives it. For what it is worth that sincerity did influence my evaluation of his behaviour and personality. XiXiDu doesn’t seem like a troll, even when he does things that trolls also would do. My impression is that I would like him if I knew him in person.
Explained by how most of his abuse is not occurring in comments here. Here he often plays at politeness. Then goes to his own blog or other forums, and there we are all a mass of creepy dangerous brainwashed naive cultists.
(...) getting health related issues as a cause of the viciousness (...)
I read this, smiled (...)
Now that’s a shitty thing to say, regardless of where one stands on the issue. Wouldn’t you say* that life is too short to be happy about other people’s lives getting shorter? “Haha, my ideological opponent will lose our argument, by ways of dying first!” (Not to slippery slope you.) Also, let’s not do the whole “abusive” reference class. That term has been so dragged through the mud via cultural appropriation by the malcontent that its use is triggering me.
* That being said, upvoted for how actual human beings think and feel, as opposed to what we’re publicly supposed to portray.
If someone get’s forced by his system 1 to quit making an argument that’s not only about his life getting shorter.
In general when someone identifies the reasons for a health issue and makes a step to solve the issue, that’s no reason to be sad.
75% positive is not a high ratio of positive karma. It’s also not like every single comment he wrote on LW is flawed. Most of the problematic posts are also written outside of LW.
Is the karma system broken (or at least not designed to deal with this sort of thing)
On a forum called “LessWrong”, where you can infer that people prefer not to hold incorrect beliefs, you can understand how critics who point out when you are being wrong so that you can be less wrong would be upvoted.
Plus, I don’t think he has been uniformly abusive—times when he has gone ‘over the line’ do not represent a significant proportion of his postings on the site. Or so I perceive.
I read this (from here), smiled and thought, “there’s some karma for you. In no way metaphysical.”
Then, I thought, “we have a literal karma system on this site.” I checked. He has karma in the quadrupedal digits, 75 percent positive. I don’t understand. If XiXiDu was so abusive, why is does he so upvoted? It seems like he must of said things worth saying, perhaps useful critiques. Is the karma system broken (or at least not designed to deal with this sort of thing) or are the accusations not as bad as they seem? Someone explain my confusion.
XiXiDu is generally a smart person and most of his comments are very good. He has this one pet peeve though.
LW karma is not a vote on the person, it’s a collection of the votes on their individual comments. Most of his comments are good. Some of them are… controversial, to put it mildly.
75 percent positive means 25 percent negative. To get a worse outcome, a person would have to be unable to post good comments, or unable to stop bringing the controversial topic everywhere, or unwilling to participate in debates unrelated to the controversial topic. In some situations XiXiDu seems unable to resist, but he usually contributes productively in completely unrelated articles.
XiXiDu has repeatedly claimed that he is not a smart person (unless I have confused him with someone else). (I didn’t believe him but his claim is at least somewhat relevant.)
False humility? Countersignalling? Depression? I don’t want to make an internet diagnosis or mind reading, but from my view these options seem more likely than the hypothesis of low intelligence.
(Unless the context was something like “intelligence lower than extremely high”; i.e. something like “I have IQ 130, but compared with people with IQ 160 I feel stupid”.)
From the context I ruled out countersignalling and for what it is worth my impression was that the humility was real, not false. Given that I err on the side of cynical regarding hypocrisy and had found some of XiXiDu’s comments disruptive I give my positive evaluation of Xi’s sincerity some weight.
I agree that the hypothesis of low intelligence is implausible despite the testimony. Addition possible factors I considered:
Specific weakness in intelligence (eg. ADHD, dyslexia or something less common) that produced low self esteem in intelligence despite overall respectable g.
Perfectionistic or obsessive tendencies which would lead to harsh self judgements relative to an unrealistic ideal. (Potentially similar to the kind of tendencies which would cause the idealism failure mode described in the opening post.)
Not realising just how stupid ‘average’ is. (This is a common error. This wasn’t the first time I’ve called ‘bullshit’ on claims to be below average IQ. Associating with highly educated nerds really biases the sample.)
That would have been more accurate, but no, the context ruled that out.
I’m curious whether XiXiDu’s confidence/objective self evaluation has changed over the intervening years. I hope it has.
This seems weird to me. While I acknowledge that there are widespread social stigmas associated with broadcasting your own intelligence, it hardly seems productive to actively downplay your intelligence either. XiXiDu does not strike me as someone who is of average or below-average intelligence—quite the opposite, in fact. So it seems odd that he would choose to “repeatedly [claim] that he is not a smart person”. Is there some advantage to be gained from saying that kind of thing that I’m just not seeing here?
It seemed weird enough to me that it stuck in my memory more clearly than any of his anti-MIRI comments.
I concur.
My best guess is an ethical compulsion towards sincere expression of reality as he perceives it. For what it is worth that sincerity did influence my evaluation of his behaviour and personality. XiXiDu doesn’t seem like a troll, even when he does things that trolls also would do. My impression is that I would like him if I knew him in person.
Explained by how most of his abuse is not occurring in comments here. Here he often plays at politeness. Then goes to his own blog or other forums, and there we are all a mass of creepy dangerous brainwashed naive cultists.
Now that’s a shitty thing to say, regardless of where one stands on the issue. Wouldn’t you say* that life is too short to be happy about other people’s lives getting shorter? “Haha, my ideological opponent will lose our argument, by ways of dying first!” (Not to slippery slope you.) Also, let’s not do the whole “abusive” reference class. That term has been so dragged through the mud via cultural appropriation by the malcontent that its use is triggering me.
* That being said, upvoted for how actual human beings think and feel, as opposed to what we’re publicly supposed to portray.
If someone get’s forced by his system 1 to quit making an argument that’s not only about his life getting shorter. In general when someone identifies the reasons for a health issue and makes a step to solve the issue, that’s no reason to be sad.
75% positive is not a high ratio of positive karma. It’s also not like every single comment he wrote on LW is flawed. Most of the problematic posts are also written outside of LW.
On a forum called “LessWrong”, where you can infer that people prefer not to hold incorrect beliefs, you can understand how critics who point out when you are being wrong so that you can be less wrong would be upvoted.
Plus, I don’t think he has been uniformly abusive—times when he has gone ‘over the line’ do not represent a significant proportion of his postings on the site. Or so I perceive.
Abusive?
Responding to Capla’s quote: