I agree that the banner is in conflict with some aspects of neutrality! Some of which I am sad about, some of which I endorse, some of which I regret (and might still change today or tomorrow).
Of course LessWrong is not just “a website” to me. You can read my now almost full decade of writing and arguing with people about the principles behind LessWrong, and the extremely long history of things like the frontpage/personal distinction which has made many many people who would like to do things like promote their job ads or events or fellowships on our frontpage angry at me.
The website may or may not be neutral, but it’s obvious that the project is not neutral.
Look, the whole reason why this conversation seemed like it would go badly is because you keep using big words without defining them and then asserting absolutes with them. I don’t know what you mean by “the project is not neutral”, and I think the same is true for almost all other readers.
Do you mean that the project is used for local political ends? Do you mean that the project has epistemic standards? Do you mean that the project is corrupt? Do you mean that the project is too responsive to external political forces? Do you mean that the project is arbitrary and unfair in ways that isn’t necessarily the cause of what any individual wants, but still has too much noise to be called “neutral”? I don’t know, all of these are reasonable things someon might mean by “neutrality” in one context, and I don’t really want to have a conversation where people just throw around big words like this without at least some awareness of the ambiguity.
I agree that the banner is in conflict with some aspects of neutrality! Some of which I am sad about, some of which I endorse, some of which I regret (and might still change today or tomorrow).
Of course LessWrong is not just “a website” to me. You can read my now almost full decade of writing and arguing with people about the principles behind LessWrong, and the extremely long history of things like the frontpage/personal distinction which has made many many people who would like to do things like promote their job ads or events or fellowships on our frontpage angry at me.
Look, the whole reason why this conversation seemed like it would go badly is because you keep using big words without defining them and then asserting absolutes with them. I don’t know what you mean by “the project is not neutral”, and I think the same is true for almost all other readers.
Do you mean that the project is used for local political ends? Do you mean that the project has epistemic standards? Do you mean that the project is corrupt? Do you mean that the project is too responsive to external political forces? Do you mean that the project is arbitrary and unfair in ways that isn’t necessarily the cause of what any individual wants, but still has too much noise to be called “neutral”? I don’t know, all of these are reasonable things someon might mean by “neutrality” in one context, and I don’t really want to have a conversation where people just throw around big words like this without at least some awareness of the ambiguity.