At the end of the day, I[1] have the keys to the database and the domain, so in some sense anything that leaves me with those keys can be summarized as “the LW mods have undertaken to unilaterally decide, in advance, what are the correct views on all topics and the correct positions in all arguments”.
But of course, that is largely semantic. It is of course not the case that I have or would ever intend to make a list of allowed or forbidden opinions on LessWrong. In contrast, I have mostly procedural models about how LessWrong should function, including the importance of LW as a free marketplace of ideas, a place where contradicting ideas can be discussed and debated, and many other aspects of what will cause the whole LW project to go well. Expanding on all of them would of course far exceed this comment thread.
On the specific topic of which things deserve scorn or ridicule or rudeness, I also find it hard to give a very short summary of what I believe. We have litigated some past disagreements in the space (such as whether people using their moderation tools to ban others from their blogpost should be subject to scorn or ridicule in most cases), which can provide some guidance, though the breadth of things we’ve covered is fairly limited. It is also clear to me that the exact flavor of rudeness and aggressiveness matters quite a bit. I favor straightforward aggression over passive aggression, and have expressed my model that “sneering” as a mental motion is almost never appropriate (though not literally never, as I expanded on).
And on most topics, I simply don’t know yet, and I’ll have to figure it out as it comes up. The space of ways people can be helpfully or unhelpfully judgmental and aggressive is very large and big, and I do not have most of it precomputed. I do have many more principles I could expand on, and would like to do sometime, but this specific comment thread does not seem like the time.
At the end of the day, I[1] have the keys to the database and the domain, so in some sense anything that leaves me with those keys can be summarized as “the LW mods have undertaken to unilaterally decide, in advance, what are the correct views on all topics and the correct positions in all arguments”.
It seems clear that your “in some sense” is doing pretty much all the work here.
Compare, again, to Data Secrets Lox: there, I have the keys to the database and the domain (and in the case of DSL, it really is just me, no one else—the domain is just mine, the database is just mine, the server config passwords… everything), and yet I don’t undertake to decide anything at all, because I have gone to great lengths to formally surrender all moderation powers (retaining only the power of deleting outright illegal content). I don’t make the rules; I don’t enforce the rules; I don’t pick the people who make or enforce the rules. (Indeed the moderators—which were chosen via to the system that I put into place—can even temp-ban me, from my own forum, that I own and run and pay for with my own personal money! And they have! And that is as it should be.)
I say this not to suggest that LW should be run the way that DSL is run (that wouldn’t really make sense, or work, or be appropriate), but to point out that obviously there is a spectrum of the degree to which having “the keys to the database and the domain” can, in fact, be meaningfully and accurately talked about as “the … mods have undertaken to unilaterally decide, in advance, what are the correct views on all topics and the correct positions in all arguments”—and you are way, way further along that spectrum than the minimal possible value thereof. In other words, it is completely possible to hold said keys, and yet (compared to how you run LW) not, in any meaningful sense, undertake to unilaterally decide anything w.r.t. correctness of views and positions.
It is of course not the case that I have or would ever intend to make a list of allowed or forbidden opinions on LessWrong. In contrast, I have mostly procedural models about how LessWrong should function, including the importance of LW as a free marketplace of ideas, a place where contradicting ideas can be discussed and debated, and many other aspects of what will cause the whole LW project to go well. Expanding on all of them would of course far exceed this comment thread.
Yes, well… the problem is that this is the central issue in this whole dispute (such as it is). The whole point is that your preferred policies (the ones to which I object) directly and severely damage LW’s ability to be “a free marketplace of ideas, a place where contradicting ideas can be discussed and debated”, and instead constitute you effectively making a list of allowed or forbidden opinions on this forum. Like… that’s pretty much the whole thing, right there. You seem to want to make that list while claiming that you’re not making any such list, and to prevent the marketplace of ideas from happening while claiming that the marketplace of ideas is important. I don’t see how you can square this circle. Your preferred policies seem to be fundamentally at odds with your stated goals.
Yes, well… the problem is that this is the central issue in this whole dispute (such as it is). The whole point is that your preferred policies (the ones to which I object) directly and severely damage LW’s ability to be “a free marketplace of ideas, a place where contradicting ideas can be discussed and debated”, and instead constitute you effectively making a list of allowed or forbidden opinions on this forum.
I don’t see where I am making any such list, unless you mean “list” in a weird way that doesn’t involve any actual lists, or even things that are kind of like lists.
in any meaningful sense, undertake to unilaterally decide anything w.r.t. correctness of views and positions.
I don’t think that’s an accurate description of DSL, indeed it appears to me that what the de-facto list of the kind of policy you have chosen is is pretty predictable (and IMO does not result in particular good outcomes). Just because you have some other people make the choices doesn’t change the predictability of the actual outcome, or who is responsible for it.
I already made the obvious point that of course, in some sense, I/we will define what is OK on LessWrong via some procedural way. You can dislike the way I/we do it.
There is definitely no “fundamentally at odds”, there is a difference in opinion about what works here, which you and me have already spent hundreds of hours trying to resolve, and we seem unlikely to resolve right now. Just making more comments stating that “I am wrong” in big words will not make that happen faster (or more likely to happen at all).
At the end of the day, I[1] have the keys to the database and the domain, so in some sense anything that leaves me with those keys can be summarized as “the LW mods have undertaken to unilaterally decide, in advance, what are the correct views on all topics and the correct positions in all arguments”.
But of course, that is largely semantic. It is of course not the case that I have or would ever intend to make a list of allowed or forbidden opinions on LessWrong. In contrast, I have mostly procedural models about how LessWrong should function, including the importance of LW as a free marketplace of ideas, a place where contradicting ideas can be discussed and debated, and many other aspects of what will cause the whole LW project to go well. Expanding on all of them would of course far exceed this comment thread.
On the specific topic of which things deserve scorn or ridicule or rudeness, I also find it hard to give a very short summary of what I believe. We have litigated some past disagreements in the space (such as whether people using their moderation tools to ban others from their blogpost should be subject to scorn or ridicule in most cases), which can provide some guidance, though the breadth of things we’ve covered is fairly limited. It is also clear to me that the exact flavor of rudeness and aggressiveness matters quite a bit. I favor straightforward aggression over passive aggression, and have expressed my model that “sneering” as a mental motion is almost never appropriate (though not literally never, as I expanded on).
And on most topics, I simply don’t know yet, and I’ll have to figure it out as it comes up. The space of ways people can be helpfully or unhelpfully judgmental and aggressive is very large and big, and I do not have most of it precomputed. I do have many more principles I could expand on, and would like to do sometime, but this specific comment thread does not seem like the time.
Again, not just me, but also other mods and stakeholders and stuff
It seems clear that your “in some sense” is doing pretty much all the work here.
Compare, again, to Data Secrets Lox: there, I have the keys to the database and the domain (and in the case of DSL, it really is just me, no one else—the domain is just mine, the database is just mine, the server config passwords… everything), and yet I don’t undertake to decide anything at all, because I have gone to great lengths to formally surrender all moderation powers (retaining only the power of deleting outright illegal content). I don’t make the rules; I don’t enforce the rules; I don’t pick the people who make or enforce the rules. (Indeed the moderators—which were chosen via to the system that I put into place—can even temp-ban me, from my own forum, that I own and run and pay for with my own personal money! And they have! And that is as it should be.)
I say this not to suggest that LW should be run the way that DSL is run (that wouldn’t really make sense, or work, or be appropriate), but to point out that obviously there is a spectrum of the degree to which having “the keys to the database and the domain” can, in fact, be meaningfully and accurately talked about as “the … mods have undertaken to unilaterally decide, in advance, what are the correct views on all topics and the correct positions in all arguments”—and you are way, way further along that spectrum than the minimal possible value thereof. In other words, it is completely possible to hold said keys, and yet (compared to how you run LW) not, in any meaningful sense, undertake to unilaterally decide anything w.r.t. correctness of views and positions.
Yes, well… the problem is that this is the central issue in this whole dispute (such as it is). The whole point is that your preferred policies (the ones to which I object) directly and severely damage LW’s ability to be “a free marketplace of ideas, a place where contradicting ideas can be discussed and debated”, and instead constitute you effectively making a list of allowed or forbidden opinions on this forum. Like… that’s pretty much the whole thing, right there. You seem to want to make that list while claiming that you’re not making any such list, and to prevent the marketplace of ideas from happening while claiming that the marketplace of ideas is important. I don’t see how you can square this circle. Your preferred policies seem to be fundamentally at odds with your stated goals.
I don’t see where I am making any such list, unless you mean “list” in a weird way that doesn’t involve any actual lists, or even things that are kind of like lists.
I don’t think that’s an accurate description of DSL, indeed it appears to me that what the de-facto list of the kind of policy you have chosen is is pretty predictable (and IMO does not result in particular good outcomes). Just because you have some other people make the choices doesn’t change the predictability of the actual outcome, or who is responsible for it.
I already made the obvious point that of course, in some sense, I/we will define what is OK on LessWrong via some procedural way. You can dislike the way I/we do it.
There is definitely no “fundamentally at odds”, there is a difference in opinion about what works here, which you and me have already spent hundreds of hours trying to resolve, and we seem unlikely to resolve right now. Just making more comments stating that “I am wrong” in big words will not make that happen faster (or more likely to happen at all).