I’m glad we didn’t participate. Doing so would have sparked an ugly political debate about censorship and SOPA and who controls LessWrong. Additionally, not participating signals being apolitical; though participating would raise our status in some communities, it also reduces our perceived impartiality.
What if Congress were considering the “Exterminate Less Wrong Act of 2012”? What kind of anti-ELWA speech or activism would you consider inappropriate here?
In the LCPW I would consider discussion and activism completely appropriate. My argument is consquentialist, not deontological—if the legislation in question was damaging enough and discussion/protest of ELWA was useful enough that the expected value of doing nothing was less than the expected value of talking about/protesting ELWA, I would be fine with such discussion and activism. I don’t think this is the case with SOPA.
not participating signals being apolitical; though participating would raise our status in some communities, it also reduces our perceived impartiality
Like with Wikipedia, the legislation threatens the viability/legality of LW in the US (and this would likely affect every LWer, even us non-US readers). Also, although not being protested, the RWA threatens a significant portion of open science, which could be far, far worse than just removing a website here or there (EDIT, however, this doesn’t directly affect the existence of LW, so I feel the need for LW as an institution to protest is smaller).
So these laws are not necessarily something LW should maintain an apolitical stance.
I’m not really sure that creating a “perception of impartiality” is a community goal. It certainly isn’t what I care about. Mostly I think its just that there is a lot of value to the kinds of conversations that are possible here, and I think that talking about “normal” politics would do more damage to those conversations compared to the specific value that it would generate. And its not even that we don’t talk a lot about politics here, its just that we’re more likely to talk about them in a very abstract way...
I really appreciate articles about how to calculate the total expected value of a political action that coherently respects issues of self-reflective agency on all parties. My suspicion is that we’ll get less of the really good stuff if we talk about run of the mill political topics, and I think that would be sad. If this makes me “look impartial” so be it, but I don’t feel impartial and don’t particularly want to give that impression. Personally, I feel (and for that matter would not mind appearing) as though I’m simply partial to sanity and clear thinking because it is so rare and so useful, and I’m willing to accept certain costs or constraints to protect what I’m partial to.
I’m not really sure that creating a “perception of impartiality” is a community goal.
Agreed. However, it is one of my goals. One of the things I love about LessWrong is that there are very few political debates in the sense that most people recognize them, and this is a community norm that I would like to continue.
I’m glad we didn’t participate. Doing so would have sparked an ugly political debate about censorship and SOPA and who controls LessWrong. Additionally, not participating signals being apolitical; though participating would raise our status in some communities, it also reduces our perceived impartiality.
To play Least Convenient Possible World:
What if Congress were considering the “Exterminate Less Wrong Act of 2012”? What kind of anti-ELWA speech or activism would you consider inappropriate here?
In the LCPW I would consider discussion and activism completely appropriate. My argument is consquentialist, not deontological—if the legislation in question was damaging enough and discussion/protest of ELWA was useful enough that the expected value of doing nothing was less than the expected value of talking about/protesting ELWA, I would be fine with such discussion and activism. I don’t think this is the case with SOPA.
It does worry me that Wikipedia quite definitely reduced its perceived impartiality. It basically had one shot. This sort of thing needs to be rare.
OTOH, in public perceptions: when Wikipedia says you suck—you really, really suck.
Like with Wikipedia, the legislation threatens the viability/legality of LW in the US (and this would likely affect every LWer, even us non-US readers). Also, although not being protested, the RWA threatens a significant portion of open science, which could be far, far worse than just removing a website here or there (EDIT, however, this doesn’t directly affect the existence of LW, so I feel the need for LW as an institution to protest is smaller).
So these laws are not necessarily something LW should maintain an apolitical stance.
Upvoted for mindkiller link :-)
I’m not really sure that creating a “perception of impartiality” is a community goal. It certainly isn’t what I care about. Mostly I think its just that there is a lot of value to the kinds of conversations that are possible here, and I think that talking about “normal” politics would do more damage to those conversations compared to the specific value that it would generate. And its not even that we don’t talk a lot about politics here, its just that we’re more likely to talk about them in a very abstract way...
I really appreciate articles about how to calculate the total expected value of a political action that coherently respects issues of self-reflective agency on all parties. My suspicion is that we’ll get less of the really good stuff if we talk about run of the mill political topics, and I think that would be sad. If this makes me “look impartial” so be it, but I don’t feel impartial and don’t particularly want to give that impression. Personally, I feel (and for that matter would not mind appearing) as though I’m simply partial to sanity and clear thinking because it is so rare and so useful, and I’m willing to accept certain costs or constraints to protect what I’m partial to.
Agreed. However, it is one of my goals. One of the things I love about LessWrong is that there are very few political debates in the sense that most people recognize them, and this is a community norm that I would like to continue.