The comments baffle me. I think it can be taken for granted that people on this site have an elevated sense of skepticism—perhaps not enough to repel ALL scams, but certainly enough to recognize a scam when your attention is explicitly drawn to it contemporaneously. Why are we now wasting time with in-depth discussion ABOUT scams and methodology, WITH the scammer in the conversation? And if you believe him not to be a scammer, why are you putting a burden of proof onto him to countersignal “fishy behavior” rather than simply lay out behaviors which will not be tolerated, or setting up an escrow Bitcoin wallet?
I think it can be taken for granted that people on this site have an elevated sense of skepticism
They also have an elevated sense of contrarianism. I suspect it’s not enough to make them literally send money to a scammer, but enough to argue publicly about giving the benefit of doubt.
My long comment was written for the audience. To make people potentially swayed by clever arguments remember the context—that this is a website where we publicly talk about donating to MIRI, publicly talk about money in general, already have a lot of quality financial advice, and no one is preventing our mysterious benefactor from posting an article.
Rationality isn’t just about being skeptical, though, and there is something to be said for giving people the benefit of the doubt and engaging with them if they are willing to do so in an open manner. There are obviously limits to the extend to which you want to do so, but so far this thread has been an interesting read so I wouldn’t worry to much about us wasting our time.
“I think it can be taken for granted that people on this site have an elevated sense of skepticism”
I disagree. Being a participant on this site implies that one has accepted some or all of the central premises of the community: that we can significantly improve our lives by thinking differently, that we should be willing to think and behave in ways that are very counter-intuitive to the average person, and that we can learn to do all of this by reading and talking on a website.
A great many ‘normal’ people would dismiss Less Wrong as a silly venture. Likewise, they’d be willing to dismiss something that looks like a scam immediately, without any thought at all. Those of us who pride ourselves on being clever, being willing to embrace an idea that other people would reject, and want to exploit loopholes and inefficiencies that other people have missed? I suspect we’re less skeptical than the average person.
Being on the site only signals that we want to be rational, and like to think that we are. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re good at it.
The comments baffle me. I think it can be taken for granted that people on this site have an elevated sense of skepticism—perhaps not enough to repel ALL scams, but certainly enough to recognize a scam when your attention is explicitly drawn to it contemporaneously. Why are we now wasting time with in-depth discussion ABOUT scams and methodology, WITH the scammer in the conversation? And if you believe him not to be a scammer, why are you putting a burden of proof onto him to countersignal “fishy behavior” rather than simply lay out behaviors which will not be tolerated, or setting up an escrow Bitcoin wallet?
They also have an elevated sense of contrarianism. I suspect it’s not enough to make them literally send money to a scammer, but enough to argue publicly about giving the benefit of doubt.
My long comment was written for the audience. To make people potentially swayed by clever arguments remember the context—that this is a website where we publicly talk about donating to MIRI, publicly talk about money in general, already have a lot of quality financial advice, and no one is preventing our mysterious benefactor from posting an article.
Rationality isn’t just about being skeptical, though, and there is something to be said for giving people the benefit of the doubt and engaging with them if they are willing to do so in an open manner. There are obviously limits to the extend to which you want to do so, but so far this thread has been an interesting read so I wouldn’t worry to much about us wasting our time.
“I think it can be taken for granted that people on this site have an elevated sense of skepticism”
I disagree. Being a participant on this site implies that one has accepted some or all of the central premises of the community: that we can significantly improve our lives by thinking differently, that we should be willing to think and behave in ways that are very counter-intuitive to the average person, and that we can learn to do all of this by reading and talking on a website.
A great many ‘normal’ people would dismiss Less Wrong as a silly venture. Likewise, they’d be willing to dismiss something that looks like a scam immediately, without any thought at all. Those of us who pride ourselves on being clever, being willing to embrace an idea that other people would reject, and want to exploit loopholes and inefficiencies that other people have missed? I suspect we’re less skeptical than the average person.
Being on the site only signals that we want to be rational, and like to think that we are. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re good at it.