IMO, we are still in the process of evaluating both: a) Whether Geoff Anders is someone the rationalist community (or various folks in it) would do better to ostracize, in various senses; and b) Whether there really is a thing called “frame control”, what exactly it is, whether it’s bad, whether it should be “burned with fire,” etc
Are you genuinely unsure whether or not there’s a bad thing aella is (perhaps suboptimally) pointing at? If yes, then I feel like that’s a cause for doom for whatever social communities you’re trying to moderate. (By contrast, I’d find it highly understandable if you think aella is onto something, but you’re worried she’s packing too many ingredients into her description.)
If not, then I find it interesting that you’re using this pseudo-neutral framing (“whether it’s bad”) even though you already have at least some agreement with the things aella is trying to say. It’s interesting that a post saying “There’s this insidious, bad, community-destroying thing” gets mainly reactions like “Careful, this is a weapon that misguided people could use to ostracize innocents” as opposed to ones that acknowledge the really bad thing exists and is really bad. It almost seems like people are saying the bad thing cannot be remotely as bad as the risk that some people get accused of it unfairly, so we should better not talk about it too much.
I’m open to being convinced that “unfair convictions” actually are the bigger problem. But I doubt it. My guess is that in instances where a person with benign cognition ends up unfairly ostracized, there’s someone with interpersonally incorrigible cognition who had their fingers in the plot somehow. Therefore, the entire risk here (that people illegitimately use what seems like “too easily applicable of a social weapon”) is a risk mostly because interpersonally incorrigible cognition / frame distortion exists in the first place. And I suspect that a good step at identifying solutions to the problem is by discussing it head-on and taking seriously the idea that it should be burnt with fire. I’m not saying we should already assume that this is the right answer. I’m just saying, maybe people are shying away from the possibility that it is the right answer. And if so, I want to urgently scream: STOP DOING THAT.
Edit: I no longer endorse what I wrote. I feel like I’m just complaining about “matters of emphasis,” which is not a very helpful way of disagreeing, and is the sort of thing that happens in politically charged discourse. Tl;dr, I can’t really find explicit faults in your comment, except that I find myself “clinging at” things you emphasize less and which ones you emphasize more. I think there’s something I should be able to say here that is useful and informative, but I’d have to think about it for a lot longer to avoid launching us into an unfairly started, unproductive discussion.
Are you genuinely unsure whether or not there’s a bad thing aella is (perhaps suboptimally) pointing at? If yes, then I feel like that’s a cause for doom for whatever social communities you’re trying to moderate. (By contrast, I’d find it highly understandable if you think aella is onto something, but you’re worried she’s packing too many ingredients into her description.)If not, then I find it interesting that you’re using this pseudo-neutral framing (“whether it’s bad”) even though you already have at least some agreement with the things aella is trying to say. It’s interesting that a post saying “There’s this insidious, bad, community-destroying thing” gets mainly reactions like “Careful, this is a weapon that misguided people could use to ostracize innocents” as opposed to ones that acknowledge the really bad thing exists and is really bad. It almost seems like people are saying the bad thing cannot be remotely as bad as the risk that some people get accused of it unfairly, so we should better not talk about it too much.I’m open to being convinced that “unfair convictions” actually are the bigger problem. But I doubt it. My guess is that in instances where a person with benign cognition ends up unfairly ostracized, there’s someone with interpersonally incorrigible cognition who had their fingers in the plot somehow. Therefore, the entire risk here (that people illegitimately use what seems like “too easily applicable of a social weapon”) is a risk mostly because interpersonally incorrigible cognition / frame distortion exists in the first place. And I suspect that a good step at identifying solutions to the problem is by discussing it head-on and taking seriously the idea that it should be burnt with fire. I’m not saying we should already assume that this is the right answer. I’m just saying, maybe people are shying away from the possibility that it is the right answer. And if so, I want to urgently scream: STOP DOING THAT.Edit: I no longer endorse what I wrote. I feel like I’m just complaining about “matters of emphasis,” which is not a very helpful way of disagreeing, and is the sort of thing that happens in politically charged discourse. Tl;dr, I can’t really find explicit faults in your comment, except that I find myself “clinging at” things you emphasize less and which ones you emphasize more. I think there’s something I should be able to say here that is useful and informative, but I’d have to think about it for a lot longer to avoid launching us into an unfairly started, unproductive discussion.
(Upvoting for the edit.)