If someone wants to describe LW as cultish, they can take any parody of itself and present it as further evidence for their claims.
I think something like this has already happened with the Chuck-Norris-like list of Yudkowsky facts; the “Bayesian conspirator” illustration of the beisutsukai stories; and the redacted lecture screenshot that displayed “Eliezer Yudkowsky” on the right end of the intelligence scale. -- Instead of “they are cool people who can make fun” they can be spinned into “this is what those people seriously believe / this is how much they are obsessed with themselves… they must be truly insane”. See RationalWiki:
That Eliezer Yudkowsky Facts page is the most disturbing thing I have read in my life. I don’t need a shower, I need the outer layer of my skin peeled off. (...) It is fanboyism at a disturbing level. (...) he is hosting this shit on his website that disturbs me
On the other hand, if someone wants to describe LW as cultish, they could also use lack of parodies, or whatever else as an evidence. Once you are charged with being a witch, there is not much you could successfully say in your defense.
So at the end, perhaps we should ignore all such considerations (which, by the way, is what most non-cults do) and simply upvote or downvote things only by their own merit. Also, any attempts for this kind of PR automatically destroys themselves if it is easy to provide a link to the discussion about the PR. (And LW being LW, such discussion will almost certainly happen.)
I like how your critique is strong but no one is upvoting your comment because it can’t be used to support any of their petty policy narratives. I’ll upvote it, anyway. ETA: Welp, people are upvoting it now, sweet. Retracting this comment.
I’d still be happy to remove the EY facts post, although I’ve been hesitant to do so because it would affect many other people’s comments and hiding things might itself be construed as sinister. (I guess your point is that it doesn’t matter, but I thought I’d mention it.)
Removing it at this point would be counterproductive. The problem is not that this is a community that can generate halfway-tongue-in-cheek hero worship from time to time: I’ve seen that in literally every community I’ve been part of, from both sides, and it’s relatively harmless. The problem is that it’s perceived as taking that hero-worship too seriously, and deleting the post over PR concerns would only reinforce that impression.
If there’s an aspect of the whole thing that annoys me, it’s that it’s hard to get that innocence back, once you even start thinking about whether you’re independent of someone. (...) the cached thought had been planted in my mind from reading other people arguing over whether or not (...) was a “cult”
If someone wants to describe LW as cultish, they can take any parody of itself and present it as further evidence for their claims.
I think something like this has already happened with the Chuck-Norris-like list of Yudkowsky facts; the “Bayesian conspirator” illustration of the beisutsukai stories; and the redacted lecture screenshot that displayed “Eliezer Yudkowsky” on the right end of the intelligence scale. -- Instead of “they are cool people who can make fun” they can be spinned into “this is what those people seriously believe / this is how much they are obsessed with themselves… they must be truly insane”. See RationalWiki:
On the other hand, if someone wants to describe LW as cultish, they could also use lack of parodies, or whatever else as an evidence. Once you are charged with being a witch, there is not much you could successfully say in your defense.
So at the end, perhaps we should ignore all such considerations (which, by the way, is what most non-cults do) and simply upvote or downvote things only by their own merit. Also, any attempts for this kind of PR automatically destroys themselves if it is easy to provide a link to the discussion about the PR. (And LW being LW, such discussion will almost certainly happen.)
I like how your critique is strong but no one is upvoting your comment because it can’t be used to support any of their petty policy narratives. I’ll upvote it, anyway. ETA: Welp, people are upvoting it now, sweet. Retracting this comment.
I’d still be happy to remove the EY facts post, although I’ve been hesitant to do so because it would affect many other people’s comments and hiding things might itself be construed as sinister. (I guess your point is that it doesn’t matter, but I thought I’d mention it.)
Removing it at this point would be counterproductive. The problem is not that this is a community that can generate halfway-tongue-in-cheek hero worship from time to time: I’ve seen that in literally every community I’ve been part of, from both sides, and it’s relatively harmless. The problem is that it’s perceived as taking that hero-worship too seriously, and deleting the post over PR concerns would only reinforce that impression.
I liked that post. Okay, maybe not all the “facts” are equally funny, but that’s how creativity works.
Also: