“called people stupid and evil” is a more compelling pretext for censorship (if you can trick stakeholders into believing it) than “used a contemptuous tone while criticizing people for evading criticism.”
@Ben Pace And the question of whether Said, in that (and other) comments, was calling people “stupid or evil,” is the only point of discussion in this thread. As Habryka said at the beginning:
you obviously call people stupid and evil [...] but it just seems absurd to suggest that paragraphs like this is not equivalent to calling people “stupid” or “evil”
Which I responded to by saying:
It’s… obviously not equivalent to saying people are dumb or evil?
It is equivalent to saying people have soft egos.
Then the whole thing digressed into whether there is “contempt” involved, which seems to be very logically rude from the other conversation participants (in particular, one of the mods), the following dismissive paragraph in particular:
In as much as you are just trying to say “contempt for them, because of their weak egos”, then sure, whenever someone acts contemptuous they will have some reason. In this case the reason is “I judge your ego to be weak” but that doesn’t really change anything.
It… doesn’t change anything if Said is calling people “stupid or evil” or if he’s calling them something else? That’s literally the only reason this whole argumentative thread (the one starting here) exists. Saying “sure” while failing to acknowledge you’re not addressing the topic at hand is a classic instance of logical rudeness.
Habryka is free to express whatever views he has on the Said matter, but I would have hoped and expected that site norms would not allow him to repeatedly insult (see above) and threaten to ban another user who has (unlike Habryka) followed those conversational norms instead of digressing into other matters.
Look, I gave you an actual moderator warning to stop participating in this conversation. Please knock it off, or I will give you at least a temporary ban for a week until some other moderators have time to look at this.
Habryka is free to express whatever views he has on the Said matter, but I would have hoped and expected that site norms would not allow him to repeatedly insult (see above) and threaten to ban another user who has (unlike Habryka) followed those conversational norms instead of digressing into other matters.
The whole reason why I am interested in at least giving you a temporary suspension from this thread is because you are not following reasonable conversational norms (or at least in this narrow circumstance appear to be extremely ill-suited for discussing the subject-matter at hand in a way that might look like being intentionally dense, or could just be a genuine skill issue, I don’t know, I feel genuinely uncertain).
It is indeed not a norm on LessWrong to not express negative feelings and judgements! There are bounds to it, of course, but the issue of contention is passive-aggression, not straightforward aggression.
In any case, I think after reviewing a lot of your other comments for a while, I think you are overall a good commenter and have written many really helpful contributions, and I think it’s unlikely any long-term ban would make sense, unless we end up in some really dumb escalation on this thread. I’ll still review things with the other mods, but my guess is you don’t have to be very worried about that.
I am however actually asking you as a mod to stay out of this discussion (and this includes inline reacts), as I do really think you seem much worse on this topic than others (and this seems confirmed by sanity-checking with other people who haven’t been participating here).
It is indeed not a norm on LessWrong to not express negative feelings and judgements! There are bounds to it, of course, but the issue of contention is passive-aggression, not straightforward aggression.
What would be some examples of permissible “straightforward aggression”?
I am not interested in answering this question (as I don’t see any compelling reason given for why it would be worth my time, or why it would benefit others), though maybe someone else is!
In general, please motivate your questions. There is a long-lasting pattern of you failing to do so, and this causing many many many burnt hours of effort as people try to guess what your actual aims are, and what causes you to ask the questions they are asking.
I personally am unlikely to answer this question even with motivation, as I have been burnt too many times by this pattern, though maybe others still have stamina for it.
(It’s not clear to me what profit there is in elaborating on a question that you’ve already said you won’t answer, but I guess I can ignore that you said this, as a sort of writing exercise, and a good opportunity to make some relevant general points…)
In general, please motivate your questions. There is a long-lasting pattern of you failing to do so, and this causing many many many burnt hours of effort as people try to guess what your actual aims are, and what causes you to ask the questions they are asking.
Needless to say, I disagree with your characterization re: “long-lasting pattern”, etc. But let’s set that aside for now. To the main point:
Firstly, while some questions do indeed benefit substantially from being accompanied by explanations of what motivates them, this is basically always because the question is in some way ambiguous; or because the question must be, in some meaningful sense, interpreted before it can be answered; or because it’s such an inherently weird question that it seems a priori very improbable that anyone would be interested in the literal answer; or due to some other circumstance that makes it hard to take the question at face value. Questions like “what are some examples of [thing that your interlocutor said]” don’t fall into any of those categories. They basically never require “motivation”.
Secondly, in my experience, “why do you ask that” is very often a way of avoiding answering. Alice asks a question, Bob asks “why do you ask”, Alice explains, and now Bob can start interrogating Alice about her motivation, criticizing it, going off on various tangents in response to something Alice said as part of her explanation of why she asks, etc., etc. Very common dynamic. This is why, when (as does sometimes happen) I find myself asking “why do you ask that”, I make a habit of assuring my interlocutor that I will answer their question in any case, am not looking for excuses to avoid answering, and am only asking in order to make my eventual answer more useful. (Thus I bind myself to answering, as if I avoid giving an answer after providing such assurance, this will look bad to any third parties. This, of course, is what gives the reassurance its force.)
You have, of course, not done that, but in some sense, the assurance that you won’t answer in any event is similar in structure, in that I am not risking my efforts to provide a motivation for the question being wasted (since I know for sure that they’ll be wasted). The motivation, then:
You claimed that “the issue of contention is passive-aggression, not straightforward aggression”. This suggests (strictly speaking, implicates) that “straightforward aggression” would be unproblematic (otherwise, it makes no sense to take pains to make the distinction).
However, in the past, I’ve been the target of moderator action for what might be described (although not by me) as “straightforward aggression”; and, more generally, moderators have made statements to me that are totally at odds with the notion that “straightforward aggression” is permissible. (For example, this comment from a moderator, and see also this comment from a non-moderator, in the same comment thread, which is re: “straightforward” vs. “passive”.)
In general, the idea that “straightforward aggression” is permissible (and your earlier comments where you outright said that it would be better if I explicitly insulted people) seems to me to be wildly at odds with Less Wrong moderation policy as I have experienced and seen it applied. Hence the question, which is aimed at figuring out just what the heck you could possibly mean by any of this.
@Ben Pace And the question of whether Said, in that (and other) comments, was calling people “stupid or evil,” is the only point of discussion in this thread. As Habryka said at the beginning:
Which I responded to by saying:
Then the whole thing digressed into whether there is “contempt” involved, which seems to be very logically rude from the other conversation participants (in particular, one of the mods), the following dismissive paragraph in particular:
It… doesn’t change anything if Said is calling people “stupid or evil” or if he’s calling them something else? That’s literally the only reason this whole argumentative thread (the one starting here) exists. Saying “sure” while failing to acknowledge you’re not addressing the topic at hand is a classic instance of logical rudeness.
I suppose it is “absurd”, showcases “you are [not] capable of participating productively in at least this online discussion”, “weirdly dense,” “intentionally dense,” a “skill issue,” “gaslighting,” etc, to focus on whatever is being actually debated and written instead of on long-running grievances mods have against a particular user.
Habryka is free to express whatever views he has on the Said matter, but I would have hoped and expected that site norms would not allow him to repeatedly insult (see above) and threaten to ban another user who has (unlike Habryka) followed those conversational norms instead of digressing into other matters.
Look, I gave you an actual moderator warning to stop participating in this conversation. Please knock it off, or I will give you at least a temporary ban for a week until some other moderators have time to look at this.
The whole reason why I am interested in at least giving you a temporary suspension from this thread is because you are not following reasonable conversational norms (or at least in this narrow circumstance appear to be extremely ill-suited for discussing the subject-matter at hand in a way that might look like being intentionally dense, or could just be a genuine skill issue, I don’t know, I feel genuinely uncertain).
It is indeed not a norm on LessWrong to not express negative feelings and judgements! There are bounds to it, of course, but the issue of contention is passive-aggression, not straightforward aggression.
In any case, I think after reviewing a lot of your other comments for a while, I think you are overall a good commenter and have written many really helpful contributions, and I think it’s unlikely any long-term ban would make sense, unless we end up in some really dumb escalation on this thread. I’ll still review things with the other mods, but my guess is you don’t have to be very worried about that.
I am however actually asking you as a mod to stay out of this discussion (and this includes inline reacts), as I do really think you seem much worse on this topic than others (and this seems confirmed by sanity-checking with other people who haven’t been participating here).
What would be some examples of permissible “straightforward aggression”?
I am not interested in answering this question (as I don’t see any compelling reason given for why it would be worth my time, or why it would benefit others), though maybe someone else is!
In general, please motivate your questions. There is a long-lasting pattern of you failing to do so, and this causing many many many burnt hours of effort as people try to guess what your actual aims are, and what causes you to ask the questions they are asking.
I personally am unlikely to answer this question even with motivation, as I have been burnt too many times by this pattern, though maybe others still have stamina for it.
(It’s not clear to me what profit there is in elaborating on a question that you’ve already said you won’t answer, but I guess I can ignore that you said this, as a sort of writing exercise, and a good opportunity to make some relevant general points…)
Needless to say, I disagree with your characterization re: “long-lasting pattern”, etc. But let’s set that aside for now. To the main point:
Firstly, while some questions do indeed benefit substantially from being accompanied by explanations of what motivates them, this is basically always because the question is in some way ambiguous; or because the question must be, in some meaningful sense, interpreted before it can be answered; or because it’s such an inherently weird question that it seems a priori very improbable that anyone would be interested in the literal answer; or due to some other circumstance that makes it hard to take the question at face value. Questions like “what are some examples of [thing that your interlocutor said]” don’t fall into any of those categories. They basically never require “motivation”.
Secondly, in my experience, “why do you ask that” is very often a way of avoiding answering. Alice asks a question, Bob asks “why do you ask”, Alice explains, and now Bob can start interrogating Alice about her motivation, criticizing it, going off on various tangents in response to something Alice said as part of her explanation of why she asks, etc., etc. Very common dynamic. This is why, when (as does sometimes happen) I find myself asking “why do you ask that”, I make a habit of assuring my interlocutor that I will answer their question in any case, am not looking for excuses to avoid answering, and am only asking in order to make my eventual answer more useful. (Thus I bind myself to answering, as if I avoid giving an answer after providing such assurance, this will look bad to any third parties. This, of course, is what gives the reassurance its force.)
You have, of course, not done that, but in some sense, the assurance that you won’t answer in any event is similar in structure, in that I am not risking my efforts to provide a motivation for the question being wasted (since I know for sure that they’ll be wasted). The motivation, then:
You claimed that “the issue of contention is passive-aggression, not straightforward aggression”. This suggests (strictly speaking, implicates) that “straightforward aggression” would be unproblematic (otherwise, it makes no sense to take pains to make the distinction).
However, in the past, I’ve been the target of moderator action for what might be described (although not by me) as “straightforward aggression”; and, more generally, moderators have made statements to me that are totally at odds with the notion that “straightforward aggression” is permissible. (For example, this comment from a moderator, and see also this comment from a non-moderator, in the same comment thread, which is re: “straightforward” vs. “passive”.)
In general, the idea that “straightforward aggression” is permissible (and your earlier comments where you outright said that it would be better if I explicitly insulted people) seems to me to be wildly at odds with Less Wrong moderation policy as I have experienced and seen it applied. Hence the question, which is aimed at figuring out just what the heck you could possibly mean by any of this.