This seems like kinda a nonsense double standard. The declared goal of journalism is usually not to sell newspapers, that is your observation of the incentive structure. And while the declared goal of LW is to arrive at truth (or something similar—hone the skills which will better allow people to arrive at truth, or something), there are comparable parallel incentive structures to journalism.
It seems better to compare declared purpose to declared purpose, or inferred goal to inferred goal, doesn’t it?
Yes, but in my judgement—and I suspect if you averaged out the judgement of reasonable others (not limited to LessWrongers) -- LW has an actual goal that is much, much closer to arriving at the truth than journalism.
This seems like kinda a nonsense double standard. The declared goal of journalism is usually not to sell newspapers, that is your observation of the incentive structure. And while the declared goal of LW is to arrive at truth (or something similar—hone the skills which will better allow people to arrive at truth, or something), there are comparable parallel incentive structures to journalism.
It seems better to compare declared purpose to declared purpose, or inferred goal to inferred goal, doesn’t it?
Yes, but in my judgement—and I suspect if you averaged out the judgement of reasonable others (not limited to LessWrongers) -- LW has an actual goal that is much, much closer to arriving at the truth than journalism.