Perhaps I should also note that I disagree with your analysis on various points.
Because of the schizophrenia you have previously mentioned here, you make a lot of weird observations, and have trouble interpreting mundane coincidences as mundane.
I’m schizotypal I suppose, but not schizophrenic given the standard definition. I don’t think I have any trouble interpreting mundane coincidences as mundane.
You also picked up a lot of ideas from the Less Wrong community.
Not especially so, actually.
So you reach out to the hoax hypotheses to justify your delusions and hallucinations
No, I honestly prefer something like Thomism to tricky hoaxes.
go on to encrust them with theological language
At Computational Theology I haven’t even really gotten into theology yet, and I certainly haven’t claimed that any supposed paranormal influences are or aren’t related to God.
This is both a common tendency in paranoid schizophrenics
I’m not sure what “this” is that you’re referring to. Theological language? I don’t think schizophrenics commonly try to “justify” their delusions by couching them in terms of theological language. What would the point be? I don’t get it. Note that talking about the abstract nature of God and so on is completely unrelated to common schizophrenic symptoms like thinking one is God or that one is somehow an ontologically privileged person.
a way to assert opposition to and claim superiority to Less Wrong
No, I don’t represent LessWrong as a thing in that way. Some on LessWrong are very interesting, some aren’t. I try to only talk to the interesting folk, even if they have serious disagreements with me. I certainly don’t think I’m “superior” to sundry people who participate on LessWrong.
per your usual self-admitted trolling.
I rarely troll—few of my LessWrong comments are downvoted. Is trolling relevant to the post? I don’t think the writing style and content of the post smacks of superiority, and I don’t think it’s trolling. It seems to me to be an argument made in good faith in the hopes of calling attention to a hypothesis that is rightly or wrongly seen as neglected.
This approach seem unlikely to lead to fruitful or pleasant reading.
Which approach? I don’t think I’m trolling, or condescend-ing. Regarding pleasantness, is there something else wrong with my writing style? Regarding fruitfulness, is it that you’re not interested in the things I discuss for whatever reason, or, more likely, is it that I generally don’t come up with ideas that catalyze further fruit-bearing insights for you? If the latter, I agree this is a problem, which is why I’ve created Computational Theology to have some place to plant seeds in the process of conceptual gardening. Hopefully having my own blog will allow me to share various interesting and significant ideas that I’ve had for a long time but that I’ve never had a chance to share on LessWrong. Hanging out at SingInst for a few years led me to have a lot of cool thoughts that ideally should be shared with the greater LessWrong community.
And empirically, the ratio of nonsense, “raving crank style,” and insanity to interesting ideas (all available elsewhere) is far too high.
What are you referring to? Few of my comments here are downvoted, and many are heavily upvoted. Also, I’ve put forth many original ideas that have been upvoted by the LessWrong community. Presumably those comments would not be “available elsewhere”.
The situation is sad, but I want to see less of this, including posts linking to it, so I downvoted.
I rarely troll—few of my LessWrong comments are downvoted.
(Empirical data: According to a karma histogram program someone posted some months ago (I saved a copy locally, but regrettably have forgotten the author’s identity), 294 of 2190 of your recent comments (about 13.4%) have negative karma as of around 1735 PDT today.)
[Edited to add: However, as Will points out in the child, it might be misleading to simply count downvoted comments, because it is believed that some users mass-downvote the comments of certain others rather than judging each comment individually; only 80 out of the 2190 comments under consideration (about 3.7%) were voted to −4 or below.]
Note that much of that is likely due to karmassassination, not legitimate downvoting.
Disagree. I approve downvoting of most of your comments that were downvoted to −2 or below, for reasons triggered by those particular comments. This makes it plausible that they were downvoted for similar reasons, rather than in a way insensitive to qualities of individual comments.
Right, but I also know that karmassassination has occurred at various points, and any karmassassination is likely to take up a disproportionate chunk of the downvotes. No?
Zack’s statistic of −4 or below is the most pertinent. It’s at 3.7%.
People will naturally wish to compare this with the percentage of my comments that are +4 or more. Zack tells us that this percentage is 19.2%.
So there’s clearly a very large asymmetry. What one makes of it depends on a lot of other background stuff.
I also know that karmassassination has occurred at various points, and any karmassassination is likely to take up a disproportionate chunk of the downvotes. No?
Not necessarily. Taboo “karmassassination”, what were you actually observing? One scenario is that some comments you make draw attention and people look over the recent N of your posts, judge them individually, but it turns out that the judgment is mostly negative. Another is that people who want to discourage a certain type of comments downvote multiple already-downvoted posts without paying too much attention, expecting that downvotes that are already present carry sufficient evidence in the context. Both cases result in surges of negative votes which remain sensitive to qualities of individual comments.
People will naturally wish to compare this with the percentage of my comments that are +4 or more. Zack tells us that this percentage is 19.2%.
You’re drifting from the topic, I’m not discussing a net perception of your participation, only explanations for the negatively judged contributions. Your writing them off as not-particularly-meaningful (effect of “karmassassination” rather than of comments’ negative qualities) seems like a rationalization, given the observations above.
Like, I’m not trying to avoid the knowledge that I often make contributions to LessWrong that aren’t well-received. It happens, more for me than for others. I was just pointing out that I’ve also noticed strict karmassassination sometimes, not necessarily often in my 2190 most recent comments. It’s just a thing to take into account. The karmassassination I have experience with is often not of the sort that you describe. But I’m perfectly willing to accept such explanations sometimes, and I’ve already noticed that they explain a few big chunks lost a few months back.
I don’t write all of them off as meaningless, of course! Didn’t mean to imply that. Some comments just aren’t positive contributions to LessWrong. It happens, and it happpens to me more than others. I’m not denying that at all.
I have a request, which you’re not at all obligated to fulfill of course. But could you tell me what percentage of my 2190 most recent comments have received 4 or more upvotes?
(And I am sorry if it was rude of me to have initiated this exchange at all, but surely it will be understood that this is the type of venue where if someone uses a word like most or few and one happens to have the actual data easily available, then one should be encouraged to share it.)
Perhaps I should also note that I disagree with your analysis on various points.
I’m schizotypal I suppose, but not schizophrenic given the standard definition. I don’t think I have any trouble interpreting mundane coincidences as mundane.
Not especially so, actually.
No, I honestly prefer something like Thomism to tricky hoaxes.
At Computational Theology I haven’t even really gotten into theology yet, and I certainly haven’t claimed that any supposed paranormal influences are or aren’t related to God.
I’m not sure what “this” is that you’re referring to. Theological language? I don’t think schizophrenics commonly try to “justify” their delusions by couching them in terms of theological language. What would the point be? I don’t get it. Note that talking about the abstract nature of God and so on is completely unrelated to common schizophrenic symptoms like thinking one is God or that one is somehow an ontologically privileged person.
No, I don’t represent LessWrong as a thing in that way. Some on LessWrong are very interesting, some aren’t. I try to only talk to the interesting folk, even if they have serious disagreements with me. I certainly don’t think I’m “superior” to sundry people who participate on LessWrong.
I rarely troll—few of my LessWrong comments are downvoted. Is trolling relevant to the post? I don’t think the writing style and content of the post smacks of superiority, and I don’t think it’s trolling. It seems to me to be an argument made in good faith in the hopes of calling attention to a hypothesis that is rightly or wrongly seen as neglected.
Which approach? I don’t think I’m trolling, or condescend-ing. Regarding pleasantness, is there something else wrong with my writing style? Regarding fruitfulness, is it that you’re not interested in the things I discuss for whatever reason, or, more likely, is it that I generally don’t come up with ideas that catalyze further fruit-bearing insights for you? If the latter, I agree this is a problem, which is why I’ve created Computational Theology to have some place to plant seeds in the process of conceptual gardening. Hopefully having my own blog will allow me to share various interesting and significant ideas that I’ve had for a long time but that I’ve never had a chance to share on LessWrong. Hanging out at SingInst for a few years led me to have a lot of cool thoughts that ideally should be shared with the greater LessWrong community.
What are you referring to? Few of my comments here are downvoted, and many are heavily upvoted. Also, I’ve put forth many original ideas that have been upvoted by the LessWrong community. Presumably those comments would not be “available elsewhere”.
Fair enough!
(Empirical data: According to a karma histogram program someone posted some months ago (I saved a copy locally, but regrettably have forgotten the author’s identity), 294 of 2190 of your recent comments (about 13.4%) have negative karma as of around 1735 PDT today.)
[Edited to add: However, as Will points out in the child, it might be misleading to simply count downvoted comments, because it is believed that some users mass-downvote the comments of certain others rather than judging each comment individually; only 80 out of the 2190 comments under consideration (about 3.7%) were voted to −4 or below.]
Thanks!
Note that much of that is likely due to karmassassination, not legitimate downvoting.
Disagree. I approve downvoting of most of your comments that were downvoted to −2 or below, for reasons triggered by those particular comments. This makes it plausible that they were downvoted for similar reasons, rather than in a way insensitive to qualities of individual comments.
Right, but I also know that karmassassination has occurred at various points, and any karmassassination is likely to take up a disproportionate chunk of the downvotes. No?
Zack’s statistic of −4 or below is the most pertinent. It’s at 3.7%.
People will naturally wish to compare this with the percentage of my comments that are +4 or more. Zack tells us that this percentage is 19.2%.
So there’s clearly a very large asymmetry. What one makes of it depends on a lot of other background stuff.
Not necessarily. Taboo “karmassassination”, what were you actually observing? One scenario is that some comments you make draw attention and people look over the recent N of your posts, judge them individually, but it turns out that the judgment is mostly negative. Another is that people who want to discourage a certain type of comments downvote multiple already-downvoted posts without paying too much attention, expecting that downvotes that are already present carry sufficient evidence in the context. Both cases result in surges of negative votes which remain sensitive to qualities of individual comments.
You’re drifting from the topic, I’m not discussing a net perception of your participation, only explanations for the negatively judged contributions. Your writing them off as not-particularly-meaningful (effect of “karmassassination” rather than of comments’ negative qualities) seems like a rationalization, given the observations above.
Like, I’m not trying to avoid the knowledge that I often make contributions to LessWrong that aren’t well-received. It happens, more for me than for others. I was just pointing out that I’ve also noticed strict karmassassination sometimes, not necessarily often in my 2190 most recent comments. It’s just a thing to take into account. The karmassassination I have experience with is often not of the sort that you describe. But I’m perfectly willing to accept such explanations sometimes, and I’ve already noticed that they explain a few big chunks lost a few months back.
I don’t write all of them off as meaningless, of course! Didn’t mean to imply that. Some comments just aren’t positive contributions to LessWrong. It happens, and it happpens to me more than others. I’m not denying that at all.
Oh, that’s a good point—I’ve added an addendum to the grandparent.
I have a request, which you’re not at all obligated to fulfill of course. But could you tell me what percentage of my 2190 most recent comments have received 4 or more upvotes?
19.2%
(And I am sorry if it was rude of me to have initiated this exchange at all, but surely it will be understood that this is the type of venue where if someone uses a word like most or few and one happens to have the actual data easily available, then one should be encouraged to share it.)
Not at all! I very much appreciate the data. Thank you for sharing.