Dear Tech Support,
Might I suggest that the entire Silas-Alicorn debate be moved to some meta-section. It has taken over the comments section of an instrumentally useful post, and may be preventing topical discussion.
Can somebody nonpartisan give us the Cliff’s Notes of the whole mess? I tried reading it. Then I tried skimming it. It seems to rely on some whole pre-existing unpleasant dynamic between several commenters of which I am currently blissfully unaware, and it also looks quite seriously dull.
It also looks pretty damn childish, despite having lots of fun mature-sounding rationalist words. A silly playground arguments is still a silly playground argument.
Are we really going to do this kind of thing on LessWrong now? Nothing is going to turn away non-committed members quite like a huge load of tedious, irrelevent drama on a front page post. I myself am, at this moment, feeling a moderate urge to say “welp, looks like LW has gone to shit now, oh well, thanks internet drama,” and I’ve been lurking here since the OB days.
It would take a lot of evidence to convince me that this shitstorm is going to end up being productive.
It also looks pretty damn childish, despite having lots of fun mature-sounding rationalist words. A silly playground arguments is still a silly playground argument.
I don’t disagree. My goal in all of this is to make it so that Alicorn and I don’t have to treat each other like enemies anymore—so she can reply to my comments, and I to hers. To end this drama, in other words. And that really is the long and short of it.
For various reasons I’m having trouble understanding, Alicorn is committed to not relaxing her shunning of me. I consider this inconsistent of her and unproductive, for much the same reasons you give.
I would love for the hostility to end too, because it’s pretty stupid that people can’t publicly reply to each other on a message board. They should try to resolve past difference. (“You first” doesn’t count as trying, IMHO.) It’s not that I have a reason why I want to reply to Alicorns comments specifically; it’s just that the whole charade of having to take circuitous routes to posting because of the presence of the other is just … stupid.
If Alicorn and a mediator want to come to a (private, online) bargaining table so we can understand and settle our differences, great! That would take the talk off the main, and eliminate the basis for me calling Alicorn inconsistent.
Finding a mediator is the easy part. Getting my committment to such talks is easy too. All that’s left is …
My goal in all of this is to make it so that Alicorn and I don’t have to treat each other like enemies anymore—so she can reply to my comments, and I to hers.
I would love for the hostility to end too, because it’s pretty stupid that people can’t publicly reply to each other on a message board.
I suspect I’ll regret getting sucked into this topic, but curiosity forces me to ask: if you think Alicorn is acting unreasonably, why not just resume replying to her comments as and when you want? She doesn’t have any special editor/moderator powers to prevent you from doing so, as far as I can tell.
Why don’t you ask all the other people who have been criticizing me what they think of this advice?
I don’t (at least, not yet) have much interest in what they think of this advice, although I am curious about what they did when you tried it. So if you have a link to what happened ‘last time,’ I’ll check it out.
I made my previous comment because of the unfortunate tendency in this discussion for several people to give me contradictory “obvious” advice, and rather than justifying contradictory positions to each of them, I’ve been content to just point out the kafkaesque standards I’m being held to.
As for the ‘last time’, I’ve linked this several times, but here you go. Notice how unpunished the good deeds go.
I made my previous comment because of the unfortunate tendency in this discussion for several people to give me contradictory “obvious” advice, and rather than justifying contradictory positions to each of them, I’ve been content to just point out the kafkaesque standards I’m being held to.
OK.
As for the ‘last time’, I’ve linked this several times,
I wasn’t around for the past iterations of this discussion, and I haven’t read the entirety of its latest iteration under this top-level post, so I probably missed it. If you’re fed up with people prompting you to link it, I’m sorry; I hadn’t realized you’d been repeatedly prompted to link it.
but here you go. Notice how unpunished the good deeds go.
Reading.
Edit—I’ve now read the thread, and I have some thoughts, but they’re not urgent and I get the feeling you’re not much interested in advice/rationalizations of advice, so I’ll bite my tongue.
Who not being content when asked to stop? Me, orAlicorn?
First link:
[Alicorn:] Since at least one person seems to agree with you, I’m genuinely curious now. Assuming I’m correct in detecting sarcasm there, can you elaborate?
[Me:] [No, because …]
[Alicorn:] [Do it anyway.]
Later, in the second link:
[Alicorn:] Let me clarify: you think I’m immature, almost constantly in error, you won’t explain my failures in enough [!] detail for me to make use of the information even when I ask, [!] [emphasis added]
It’s clear to me that what’s going on is:
1) Alicorn wanted me to explain something to her that had a lot of emotional significance.
2) I refused.
3) Alicorn kept asking.
4) Finally finding herself on the receiving end in one of these situations, she seeks to “get back” by withholding her replies from me.
But I’m sure there are other interpretations. In any case, whatever you might say of me at least Alicorn was being “excessively persistent” when asked to stop … well, at least by the standards she expects out of everyone else.
Ok. I’ve just downvoted you for at this point borderline trolling. There are lot of people here who aren’t Alicorn. I’m not going to bother discussing your claim that Alicorn didn’t benefit from this since there’s already enough people wasting time on that in your main subthread. So I’ll simply note that I am at least one person who found Alicorn’s post very useful. I’ve used a technique much like what Alicorn layed out here but she makes multiple points that a) allow me to consciously understand what I’m doing better and b) to improve on some aspects of that technique.
Since there are 30 upvotes for the post, I’m pretty sure that multiple other people found this useful (it is possible that some of those votes are due to perceived status but given the anonymous nature of upvoting it seems unlikely that more than a few of them are).
Dear Tech Support, Might I suggest that the entire Silas-Alicorn debate be moved to some meta-section. It has taken over the comments section of an instrumentally useful post, and may be preventing topical discussion.
Can somebody nonpartisan give us the Cliff’s Notes of the whole mess? I tried reading it. Then I tried skimming it. It seems to rely on some whole pre-existing unpleasant dynamic between several commenters of which I am currently blissfully unaware, and it also looks quite seriously dull.
It also looks pretty damn childish, despite having lots of fun mature-sounding rationalist words. A silly playground arguments is still a silly playground argument.
Are we really going to do this kind of thing on LessWrong now? Nothing is going to turn away non-committed members quite like a huge load of tedious, irrelevent drama on a front page post. I myself am, at this moment, feeling a moderate urge to say “welp, looks like LW has gone to shit now, oh well, thanks internet drama,” and I’ve been lurking here since the OB days.
It would take a lot of evidence to convince me that this shitstorm is going to end up being productive.
Agreed. Post-grad vocabulary, pre-school behaviour.
I don’t disagree. My goal in all of this is to make it so that Alicorn and I don’t have to treat each other like enemies anymore—so she can reply to my comments, and I to hers. To end this drama, in other words. And that really is the long and short of it.
For various reasons I’m having trouble understanding, Alicorn is committed to not relaxing her shunning of me. I consider this inconsistent of her and unproductive, for much the same reasons you give.
I would love for the hostility to end too, because it’s pretty stupid that people can’t publicly reply to each other on a message board. They should try to resolve past difference. (“You first” doesn’t count as trying, IMHO.) It’s not that I have a reason why I want to reply to Alicorns comments specifically; it’s just that the whole charade of having to take circuitous routes to posting because of the presence of the other is just … stupid.
If Alicorn and a mediator want to come to a (private, online) bargaining table so we can understand and settle our differences, great! That would take the talk off the main, and eliminate the basis for me calling Alicorn inconsistent.
Finding a mediator is the easy part. Getting my committment to such talks is easy too. All that’s left is …
I suspect I’ll regret getting sucked into this topic, but curiosity forces me to ask: if you think Alicorn is acting unreasonably, why not just resume replying to her comments as and when you want? She doesn’t have any special editor/moderator powers to prevent you from doing so, as far as I can tell.
Why don’t you ask all the other people who have been criticizing me what they think of this advice? Or check out the last time I tried that.
I don’t (at least, not yet) have much interest in what they think of this advice, although I am curious about what they did when you tried it. So if you have a link to what happened ‘last time,’ I’ll check it out.
I made my previous comment because of the unfortunate tendency in this discussion for several people to give me contradictory “obvious” advice, and rather than justifying contradictory positions to each of them, I’ve been content to just point out the kafkaesque standards I’m being held to.
As for the ‘last time’, I’ve linked this several times, but here you go. Notice how unpunished the good deeds go.
OK.
I wasn’t around for the past iterations of this discussion, and I haven’t read the entirety of its latest iteration under this top-level post, so I probably missed it. If you’re fed up with people prompting you to link it, I’m sorry; I hadn’t realized you’d been repeatedly prompted to link it.
Reading.
Edit—I’ve now read the thread, and I have some thoughts, but they’re not urgent and I get the feeling you’re not much interested in advice/rationalizations of advice, so I’ll bite my tongue.
Futilely request rational explanation for downmod.
Quit posting on this subject. Please. I didn’t downvote you, but I will downvote any more posts on the topic by anyone.
The whole affair smells quite a lot like harassment and someone not being content when asked to stop.
Who not being content when asked to stop? Me, or Alicorn?
First link:
Later, in the second link:
1) Alicorn wanted me to explain something to her that had a lot of emotional significance.
2) I refused.
3) Alicorn kept asking.
4) Finally finding herself on the receiving end in one of these situations, she seeks to “get back” by withholding her replies from me.
But I’m sure there are other interpretations. In any case, whatever you might say of me at least Alicorn was being “excessively persistent” when asked to stop … well, at least by the standards she expects out of everyone else.
Seconded.
Thirded.
Fourthed.
Fifthed.
Who found the post useful? Alicorn didn’t.
Ok. I’ve just downvoted you for at this point borderline trolling. There are lot of people here who aren’t Alicorn. I’m not going to bother discussing your claim that Alicorn didn’t benefit from this since there’s already enough people wasting time on that in your main subthread. So I’ll simply note that I am at least one person who found Alicorn’s post very useful. I’ve used a technique much like what Alicorn layed out here but she makes multiple points that a) allow me to consciously understand what I’m doing better and b) to improve on some aspects of that technique.
Since there are 30 upvotes for the post, I’m pretty sure that multiple other people found this useful (it is possible that some of those votes are due to perceived status but given the anonymous nature of upvoting it seems unlikely that more than a few of them are).
Please stop damaging the signal to noise ratio.
Comment deleted, it was not the right place to register such disagreement.
Still, you gotta admit it gave you a chance to jump on the bandwagon, get a little more karma, right? ;-)