Can Less Wrong pick up the habit of not downvoting things they didn’t bother to read?
I’ve remarked disapprovingly on that phenomenon before. That said, your comment contains some serious red-flag keywords and verbal constructions which are immediately apparent on skimming. And it’s long.
“Evil”, “Judgement Day”, “God”, “Son of Man”, “soul”, all juxtaposed casually with “utility function” and “Singularity”? And this:
God is the Word, that is, Logos, Reason the source of Reasons. God is Math. All universes converge on invoking God, just as our universe is intent on invoking Him by the name of “superintelligence”. Where there is optimization, there is a reflection of God. Where there is cooperation, there is a reflection of God. This implies that superintelligences converge on a single algorithm and “utility function”...
...?
What exactly were you expecting? Have you become so absorbed in the profundity of your thoughts that you’ve forgotten how that sounds?
Have you become so absorbed in the profundity of your thoughts that you’ve forgotten how that sounds?
Oh God no. I just, ya know, don’t care how things sound in the social psychological/epistemic sense. I’d hesitate if it was a hideous language. But religious language is very rich and not too unpleasant, though excessively melodramatic. Bach, my friend, Bach! “Ach bleib’ be uns, Herr Jesu Christ.” That was Douglas Adams’ favorite piece of music, ya know.
If LessWrong comments are like buildings, I think too many people vote based on whether they’re sturdy enough to live in, and too few people vote based on whether they can be looted for valuables. I think your comment can be looted for valuables and voted it up for that reason.
I’d worry about the comment providing fuel for critics looking for evidence that LessWrong is a cult, but maybe that doesn’t apply as much if it’s going to be downvoted into oblivion. (Or what afterlife do comments go to in your conceptual scheme? I’m finding it difficult to keep track.)
Who isn’t? Unless you consider yourself a mutant relative to the community, such that someone approving of a post is evidence that you will disapprove (I could see this happening to someone who browses a forum opposed to their world-view, for instance), then upvotes on a post are evidence you will approve of a post, and downvotes are evidence you won’t approve.
I suppose attraction to a post might not be strongly connected to approval of a post for all people, but it certainly seems that way.
ciphergoth’s point is strong enough to make it non-obvious I think. His point was roughly that previously expected badness plus seemingly excessive length is a good enough justification to downvote quickly. And I mean it’s not like people ever actually read a comment before voting on it, that’s not how humans work.
I’m not at all convinced that Less Wrong should pick up this habit, in general. Your comment is very long, and you must surely grant that there is a length beyond which one would be licensed to downvote before reading it all.
Upon reflection this is reasonable, I think I both underestimated the comment’s length and also forgot that I was commenting on a Main post, not a Discussion one.
How could you possibly know this is what is happening? Your long comment and this one have four critical comments and five downvotes apiece at the time of my viewing. The critical comments are by six different people, the downvotes are from five to ten people.
Obviously, were there no comments and a hundred downvotes you still couldn’t conclude LW had the habit of downvoting without reading.
How could you possibly know this is what is happening?
Bayesian inference. Given what I know of human behaviour and past exposure to lesswrong I assigned greater than 80% confidence that the comment was downvoted without being read. Will has even more information about the specifics of the conversation so his conclusion does not seem at all unfounded.
ie. I reject the rhetorical implication of your question. That particular inference of Will’s was reasonable. (Everything else he has said recently… less so.)
I didn’t mean to imply the full force what another might have meant to imply with my words. Granted framework for inferring that probably had happened was available, the pattern of downvotes and negative comments didn’t seem to match what the framework would require to reach the conclusion.
He gave a good answer insofar as the first downvote was concerned. A better answer would have gone on to explain that the individuals who left critical comments wouldn’t have downvoted him, but he didn’t say that, perhaps because he couldn’t have justified it even well short of it being a firm conclusion.
If he had evidence that, say, the people who left critical comments him upvoted him without reading, or that many upvoted him immediately with or without reading, he would have better reason to think many others downvoted him without reading. He didn’t say that. If you are implying now, then fine.
Considering the critical comment/downvote ratio, I remain unimpressed with the complaint, as well as with its implication that downvoting a wall of text in which the words quantum/God is Math/Him/Jesus pop out upon scanning is an unjustified thing.
Before I commented, I thought it unlikely it was justified, insofar as since commenting, he has justified thinking it true for one downvote, I think it even less likely he can justify it for the others, which enervates the claim that it is a “habit” of LW.
I downvoted the comment in question without reading it beyond confirming that by keyword it is at least as insane as the other things he has said recently. He seems to have completely lost his grasp of reality to the extent that I am concerned for his mental health and would recommend seeking urgent medical attention.
So I don’t necessarily agree that downvoting without reading is necessarily a bad thing. But Will certainly has strong evidence that it was occurring in this thread. I had noticed it before Will made the complaint himself.
I don’t think people who downvote before reading count as something to legitimately complain about, as they can change their vote after reading. “People who downvote without reading are bad” is a fine enough statement for conversation and making one’s point, but the argument against downvoting is that one shouldn’t be judged by those who fail to gain information about what they judge, which isn’t so applicable here (except to the extent the voters are biased to keep their initial vote).
In fact, if people who downvote without reading are often people who downvote before reading, the evidence that a few voted before the submission could have been read and judged on its merits is even less impressive.
At this point it really doesn’t matter much what you write. Voting patterns for the thread (and the related thread) are entrenched and you will be voted on by name not content. It is usually best to write the conversation (or the people) off and move on. There is little to be gained by trying to fight the death spiral.
Agreed. It’s always that few seconds of utter despair that make me write stupid things. It’s not long after the despair algorithm that the automatic “this isn’t the should world, it’s reality, any suffering you are experiencing is the result of samsaric delusion” algorithms kick in, at least for a little while.
I read it. I downvoted it¹ because it seems pretty nonsensical to me, in more than a few ways; I won’t go into that, though - see my previous comment.
The ideas that humans are special and animals thus have no souls & that this “is the best of all possible words” are morally repugnant to me, too. I would have mentally quadruple-downvoted you except for your idea about God reversing evil computations… so it’s only a mental triple-downvote. :p
¹I didn’t actually downvote it, because it was already at −5 when I saw it, and I want some discussion to come out of it. I think it deserves those downvotes, though.
I didn’t actually downvote it, because it was already at −5 when I saw it, and I want some discussion to come out of it.
I am surprised people say they think this way.
As I say below, attraction to isn’t necessarily the same as likeliness of approval.
“Comment score below threshold/+60 children” is practically salacious. “20 points”, less so.
I suspect that in this case others are not different than I, and I have succeeded at introspection on this point where others have not. I still think it very possible that isn’t true. This might be a first for me, as almost always when others express an opinion like this that differs from mine in this sort of way, I think the best explanation is that they think differently, and I have been wrong to not account for that.
I am surprised that people say they are more likely to read a comment voted to “20 points” than one voted to “Comment score below threshold/+60 children”. Several people have claimed something like this when justifying upvoting the walloftext post or not downvoting the walloftext post. They expressed a desire for others to read it as justifying that despite disapproval of the contents or presentation.
I would have expected people to be more attracted to comments labeled “Comment score below threshold/+60 children” than “20 points” (or zero), and to also believe and say “I am more attracted to comments labeled ‘Comment score below threshold/+60 children’ than ’20 points’ (or zero)”.
The divergence in intuition here feels similar to other instances in which people expressed a different opinion than mine in which I was surprised. For example, when a girl is and says she is offended by the suggestion of a certain activity for a date, when that activity as free, as it indicates my stinginess. In this case, I register the different way of thinking as genuine, and my anticipations, my map of the world, failed in two respects: my anticipation of her reaction to the free thing and her verbal response. It would certainly possible for someone to have a similar reaction as a feeling they can’t quite verbalize, or alternatively, to not feel disapproval of me but say the words because it is the cached thing to say among people in her circles.
That is not a perfect example but I hope it suffices, my failures have almost always been two-level.
In this case, I actually think that people saying “I/people in general (as implicitly extrapolated from myself) am more likely to read a post voted −2 than “Comment score below threshold/+60 children” are wrong.
I, of course am wrong as well by my account, as I had not mapped their maps well at all. I had expected them to say that they behave in a certain way, and that that way is how they actually behave, and that that was is to seek the contentious, inciting, heavily commented downvotes. I am wrong at least insofar as so many seem to think they don’t. Wrong wrong wrong.
That said, are they in fact correct when they predict how the LW majority chooses what to view? Note I am predicting that most people are extrapolating from their own behavior, I certainly am. It may be that individuals saying they think the majority of LW acts this way are thinking this by extrapolating from themselves, and they may or may not be right about themselves; I suspect many who say this of themselves are right and many who say this of themselves are wrong.
That’s completely fair. I just don’t like when I make a long comment and it gets downvoted before I can click on the Will_Newsome link, ha. In retrospect I shouldn’t have said anything.
Can Less Wrong pick up the habit of not downvoting things they didn’t bother to read? /sigh.
I’ve remarked disapprovingly on that phenomenon before. That said, your comment contains some serious red-flag keywords and verbal constructions which are immediately apparent on skimming. And it’s long.
“Evil”, “Judgement Day”, “God”, “Son of Man”, “soul”, all juxtaposed casually with “utility function” and “Singularity”? And this:
...?
What exactly were you expecting? Have you become so absorbed in the profundity of your thoughts that you’ve forgotten how that sounds?
Yeah.
I am reminded of the ancient proverb: “Communicating badly and then acting smug when you’re misunderstood is not cleverness.”
Oh God no. I just, ya know, don’t care how things sound in the social psychological/epistemic sense. I’d hesitate if it was a hideous language. But religious language is very rich and not too unpleasant, though excessively melodramatic. Bach, my friend, Bach! “Ach bleib’ be uns, Herr Jesu Christ.” That was Douglas Adams’ favorite piece of music, ya know.
If LessWrong comments are like buildings, I think too many people vote based on whether they’re sturdy enough to live in, and too few people vote based on whether they can be looted for valuables. I think your comment can be looted for valuables and voted it up for that reason.
I’d worry about the comment providing fuel for critics looking for evidence that LessWrong is a cult, but maybe that doesn’t apply as much if it’s going to be downvoted into oblivion. (Or what afterlife do comments go to in your conceptual scheme? I’m finding it difficult to keep track.)
You’re more attracted to upvoted posts than downvoted ones?
Who isn’t? Unless you consider yourself a mutant relative to the community, such that someone approving of a post is evidence that you will disapprove (I could see this happening to someone who browses a forum opposed to their world-view, for instance), then upvotes on a post are evidence you will approve of a post, and downvotes are evidence you won’t approve.
I suppose attraction to a post might not be strongly connected to approval of a post for all people, but it certainly seems that way.
Attraction to isn’t necessarily the same as likeliness of approval.
“Comment score below threshold/+60 children” is practically salacious. “20 points”, less so.
Downvoted the parent, as I expect “didn’t bother to read” is a bad explanation for downvoting in this case, but it was stated as obvious.
ciphergoth’s point is strong enough to make it non-obvious I think. His point was roughly that previously expected badness plus seemingly excessive length is a good enough justification to downvote quickly. And I mean it’s not like people ever actually read a comment before voting on it, that’s not how humans work.
Explanation for some portion yes, but not for the trend. (Which might be pointing out a discrepancy in our interpretation of that “explain”.)
That’s not true. Sometimes we have to read the comment a bit before we can find it contains an applause light for the other team. ;)
I’m not at all convinced that Less Wrong should pick up this habit, in general. Your comment is very long, and you must surely grant that there is a length beyond which one would be licensed to downvote before reading it all.
Upon reflection this is reasonable, I think I both underestimated the comment’s length and also forgot that I was commenting on a Main post, not a Discussion one.
And another of those “Less Wrong isn’t like other Internet forums” moments. Thank you!
I read all of it. Somehow.
I also (1 2) downvoted only after reading.
How could you possibly know this is what is happening? Your long comment and this one have four critical comments and five downvotes apiece at the time of my viewing. The critical comments are by six different people, the downvotes are from five to ten people.
Obviously, were there no comments and a hundred downvotes you still couldn’t conclude LW had the habit of downvoting without reading.
Bayesian inference. Given what I know of human behaviour and past exposure to lesswrong I assigned greater than 80% confidence that the comment was downvoted without being read. Will has even more information about the specifics of the conversation so his conclusion does not seem at all unfounded.
ie. I reject the rhetorical implication of your question. That particular inference of Will’s was reasonable. (Everything else he has said recently… less so.)
I didn’t mean to imply the full force what another might have meant to imply with my words. Granted framework for inferring that probably had happened was available, the pattern of downvotes and negative comments didn’t seem to match what the framework would require to reach the conclusion.
He gave a good answer insofar as the first downvote was concerned. A better answer would have gone on to explain that the individuals who left critical comments wouldn’t have downvoted him, but he didn’t say that, perhaps because he couldn’t have justified it even well short of it being a firm conclusion.
If he had evidence that, say, the people who left critical comments him upvoted him without reading, or that many upvoted him immediately with or without reading, he would have better reason to think many others downvoted him without reading. He didn’t say that. If you are implying now, then fine.
Considering the critical comment/downvote ratio, I remain unimpressed with the complaint, as well as with its implication that downvoting a wall of text in which the words quantum/God is Math/Him/Jesus pop out upon scanning is an unjustified thing.
Before I commented, I thought it unlikely it was justified, insofar as since commenting, he has justified thinking it true for one downvote, I think it even less likely he can justify it for the others, which enervates the claim that it is a “habit” of LW.
I downvoted the comment in question without reading it beyond confirming that by keyword it is at least as insane as the other things he has said recently. He seems to have completely lost his grasp of reality to the extent that I am concerned for his mental health and would recommend seeking urgent medical attention.
So I don’t necessarily agree that downvoting without reading is necessarily a bad thing. But Will certainly has strong evidence that it was occurring in this thread. I had noticed it before Will made the complaint himself.
I don’t think people who downvote before reading count as something to legitimately complain about, as they can change their vote after reading. “People who downvote without reading are bad” is a fine enough statement for conversation and making one’s point, but the argument against downvoting is that one shouldn’t be judged by those who fail to gain information about what they judge, which isn’t so applicable here (except to the extent the voters are biased to keep their initial vote).
In fact, if people who downvote without reading are often people who downvote before reading, the evidence that a few voted before the submission could have been read and judged on its merits is even less impressive.
I got a downvote within about 10 seconds.
At this point it really doesn’t matter much what you write. Voting patterns for the thread (and the related thread) are entrenched and you will be voted on by name not content. It is usually best to write the conversation (or the people) off and move on. There is little to be gained by trying to fight the death spiral.
Agreed. It’s always that few seconds of utter despair that make me write stupid things. It’s not long after the despair algorithm that the automatic “this isn’t the should world, it’s reality, any suffering you are experiencing is the result of samsaric delusion” algorithms kick in, at least for a little while.
I read it. I downvoted it¹ because it seems pretty nonsensical to me, in more than a few ways; I won’t go into that, though - see my previous comment.
The ideas that humans are special and animals thus have no souls & that this “is the best of all possible words” are morally repugnant to me, too. I would have mentally quadruple-downvoted you except for your idea about God reversing evil computations… so it’s only a mental triple-downvote. :p
¹I didn’t actually downvote it, because it was already at −5 when I saw it, and I want some discussion to come out of it. I think it deserves those downvotes, though.
I am surprised people say they think this way.
As I say below, attraction to isn’t necessarily the same as likeliness of approval.
“Comment score below threshold/+60 children” is practically salacious. “20 points”, less so.
I suspect that in this case others are not different than I, and I have succeeded at introspection on this point where others have not. I still think it very possible that isn’t true. This might be a first for me, as almost always when others express an opinion like this that differs from mine in this sort of way, I think the best explanation is that they think differently, and I have been wrong to not account for that.
I’m afraid I don’t understand this. “Think this way”—what way would that be, exactly?
I am surprised that people say they are more likely to read a comment voted to “20 points” than one voted to “Comment score below threshold/+60 children”. Several people have claimed something like this when justifying upvoting the walloftext post or not downvoting the walloftext post. They expressed a desire for others to read it as justifying that despite disapproval of the contents or presentation.
I would have expected people to be more attracted to comments labeled “Comment score below threshold/+60 children” than “20 points” (or zero), and to also believe and say “I am more attracted to comments labeled ‘Comment score below threshold/+60 children’ than ’20 points’ (or zero)”.
The divergence in intuition here feels similar to other instances in which people expressed a different opinion than mine in which I was surprised. For example, when a girl is and says she is offended by the suggestion of a certain activity for a date, when that activity as free, as it indicates my stinginess. In this case, I register the different way of thinking as genuine, and my anticipations, my map of the world, failed in two respects: my anticipation of her reaction to the free thing and her verbal response. It would certainly possible for someone to have a similar reaction as a feeling they can’t quite verbalize, or alternatively, to not feel disapproval of me but say the words because it is the cached thing to say among people in her circles.
That is not a perfect example but I hope it suffices, my failures have almost always been two-level.
In this case, I actually think that people saying “I/people in general (as implicitly extrapolated from myself) am more likely to read a post voted −2 than “Comment score below threshold/+60 children” are wrong.
I, of course am wrong as well by my account, as I had not mapped their maps well at all. I had expected them to say that they behave in a certain way, and that that way is how they actually behave, and that that was is to seek the contentious, inciting, heavily commented downvotes. I am wrong at least insofar as so many seem to think they don’t. Wrong wrong wrong.
That said, are they in fact correct when they predict how the LW majority chooses what to view? Note I am predicting that most people are extrapolating from their own behavior, I certainly am. It may be that individuals saying they think the majority of LW acts this way are thinking this by extrapolating from themselves, and they may or may not be right about themselves; I suspect many who say this of themselves are right and many who say this of themselves are wrong.
That’s completely fair. I just don’t like when I make a long comment and it gets downvoted before I can click on the Will_Newsome link, ha. In retrospect I shouldn’t have said anything.