Maybe your criticisms of Less Wrong just aren’t all that well-reasoned. Plenty of Less Wrong criticism gets upvoted here. The most-upvoted post of all time is a criticism of MIRI, and several of my own most-upvoted comments are direct criticisms of Eliezer, e.g. this and this. See also this much-upvoted post.
Thanks for the reply. When you suggest that maybe the problem is on my end, are you really just offering that as a mere possibility, or do you believe that that is actually the case? I’m asking because while it is of course entirely reasonable to say that the fault lies with me, nobody as of yet has told me what specifically is wrong with my posts (other than: “not enough facts”, or: “You sound left-wing”). If the latter is the case, please tell me what specifically I could improve.
The first post you link to is the one by Holden that I specifically referred to above as the only type of criticism that does get upvoted. The reasons for this are varied: 1) Holden is high status: Nobody is going to tell Holden to shut up and go away (as I’ve been told to) because the mere fact that he is taking the MIRI seriously is good for the MIRI and Less Wrong. 2) Holden is exceedingly polite and says nothing that could even be taken as an excuse to be offended 3) Holden goes out of his way to praise Less Wrong as a community, which of course makes people here feel good. 4) Holden has spent a ridiculous amount of time and effort writing and supporting that exceedingly lengthy post, well beyond normal standards. 5) Holden doesn’t actually say anything that is considered Taboo here on Less Wrong. His post defends the proposition that donating to MIRI isn’t the best possible expenditure of money. That’s hardly going to rile people up.
Holden’s post is the equivalent of James Randi going to a dowser’s forum, and writing a 10 page thesis on why he thinks dowsing isn’t 100% effective, while repeatedly saying how he might be wrong, and he really wants to be able to change his mind, and isn’t the idea of dowsing wonderful and aren’t dowsers great people. Of course the dowsers would be very happy with a post like that: it only validates them to have something like James Randi say all that. This does NOT mean that dowsers are all rational individuals who are happy to receive criticism of their ideas.
The same point holds for your own posts criticizing Eliezer, albeit to a lesser extent. And again, criticizing Eliezer is not taboo here. Criticizing Less Wrong itself, more so.
Maybe your criticisms of Less Wrong just aren’t all that well-reasoned. Plenty of Less Wrong criticism gets upvoted here. The most-upvoted post of all time is a criticism of MIRI, and several of my own most-upvoted comments are direct criticisms of Eliezer, e.g. this and this. See also this much-upvoted post.
Thanks for the reply. When you suggest that maybe the problem is on my end, are you really just offering that as a mere possibility, or do you believe that that is actually the case? I’m asking because while it is of course entirely reasonable to say that the fault lies with me, nobody as of yet has told me what specifically is wrong with my posts (other than: “not enough facts”, or: “You sound left-wing”). If the latter is the case, please tell me what specifically I could improve.
The first post you link to is the one by Holden that I specifically referred to above as the only type of criticism that does get upvoted. The reasons for this are varied:
1) Holden is high status: Nobody is going to tell Holden to shut up and go away (as I’ve been told to) because the mere fact that he is taking the MIRI seriously is good for the MIRI and Less Wrong.
2) Holden is exceedingly polite and says nothing that could even be taken as an excuse to be offended
3) Holden goes out of his way to praise Less Wrong as a community, which of course makes people here feel good.
4) Holden has spent a ridiculous amount of time and effort writing and supporting that exceedingly lengthy post, well beyond normal standards.
5) Holden doesn’t actually say anything that is considered Taboo here on Less Wrong. His post defends the proposition that donating to MIRI isn’t the best possible expenditure of money. That’s hardly going to rile people up.
Holden’s post is the equivalent of James Randi going to a dowser’s forum, and writing a 10 page thesis on why he thinks dowsing isn’t 100% effective, while repeatedly saying how he might be wrong, and he really wants to be able to change his mind, and isn’t the idea of dowsing wonderful and aren’t dowsers great people. Of course the dowsers would be very happy with a post like that: it only validates them to have something like James Randi say all that. This does NOT mean that dowsers are all rational individuals who are happy to receive criticism of their ideas.
The same point holds for your own posts criticizing Eliezer, albeit to a lesser extent. And again, criticizing Eliezer is not taboo here. Criticizing Less Wrong itself, more so.