Religion is the most obvious—the usual rule for family Thanksgiving is “no politics or religion”, because the two are broadly equal in effects on social interactions. LW picks an absolutist position on one to enshrine as dogma(or as close to dogma as we come) and makes the other a complete taboo. That is very odd behaviour. And simply picking the best comparison and declaring it “non-representative” is hardly reasonable argumentation. After that, most of the common topics are niche issues, but I’m sure you’ve had plenty of discussions caused by, say, conventional AI researchers mocking the friendliness obsession without any particular regard for rationalism or transhumanism.
Also, I admit to being an occasional, so I should probably ask—is the “drawing the wrong crowd” effect an observed outcome of political debate on LW, or a feared hypothetical?
Sorry, I thought the non-representativeness of religion as a topic of conversation here was obvious (for exactly the reasons you lay out in your comment) and so didn’t bother explicating them. Thanks for doing it for me.
I apparently don’t follow the argument I’m making, then.
Religion and politics are close analogues in their effect on the quality of discourse, and on social interaction generally.
LW takes a very bold stand on religion, contrary to the beliefs of a strong majority of people, and is perfectly okay with debate on the topic(if a bit dismissive of most of the counterarguments).
LW takes the most passive possible stand on politics, and has a well-established form of mockery for anyone who so much as brings it up in passing.
How does this possibly make any sense? There seems to be no “one thing at a time” doctrine, no censoring of controversial topics, and an active encouragement of making any sort of weird niche argument about absolutely anything that isn’t politics. The only explanation I can see is that this community has elevated a line mocking the standards of debate in politics into a social law, despite the general acceptance of “raising the waterline” on any of a hundred other topics, for no reason that I can see. Yes, politics is messy, and any sensible political debate between Bayesians needs to draw a very sharp line between what the probable outcomes of a given set of policies are and the utility of those outcomes, but that seems like something that the community will adapt to easily.
So where exactly is the stumbling block here? Or is this just a shibboleth? I am genuinely confused.
My concern is not about what a sensible political debate between Bayesians looks like, but about what political debate on a public Internet forum that anyone can join looks like.
I gather you think that has a high positive expected value here. (Is that right? It’s also possible that you think we have some obligation to engage in it, perhaps out of some sense of internal consistency or signaling considerations or something else, regardless of its expected value. But you seem to mostly be talking about likely consequences here.)
I think it has a low to moderate negative expected value.
That said, I might of course be wrong. Do you have any evidence for your evaluation that might be new to me?
I don’t think this forum is greatly appealing to the sort of people who usually bugger up political debate on the internet.
And frankly, my primary goal is to find some group where I can have a political debate that doesn’t make me want to rip my hair out in frustration. My secondary goal is understanding why this taboo exists, because I’m curious now. Not immensely valuable goals, but unless there’s a negative that would counteract the positive, still ones worth pursuing.
I don’t think this forum is greatly appealing to the sort of people who usually bugger up political debate on the internet.
In general, I agree with you. It’s one of the reasons I like this forum. I expect it to become more appealing to them if political debate becomes a staple here. I consider that sufficient negative, though I understand that you either don’t share the expectation or don’t agree with my valuation of it.
I’m curious, though: why is having a political debate such a high-priority goal for you?
I like political debate. Always have, really. Getting one that isn’t built on cheap shots, anecdote-as-data, and other such cheese is very difficult, and I’ve usually found it to be greatly rewarding when it does happen. I want to investigate my political beliefs with actual data, and that’s amazingly hard to do normally. On top of that, I expect it’ll be great fun to watch “Bayesians cannot disagree” run into that particular brick wall, instead of the universal stuff like “There’s no evidence that God exists”.
It’s not the highest priority around, just happens to be one that I’d like to see, and one that seemed worth a few comments.
Religion is the most obvious—the usual rule for family Thanksgiving is “no politics or religion”, because the two are broadly equal in effects on social interactions. LW picks an absolutist position on one to enshrine as dogma(or as close to dogma as we come) and makes the other a complete taboo. That is very odd behaviour. And simply picking the best comparison and declaring it “non-representative” is hardly reasonable argumentation. After that, most of the common topics are niche issues, but I’m sure you’ve had plenty of discussions caused by, say, conventional AI researchers mocking the friendliness obsession without any particular regard for rationalism or transhumanism.
Also, I admit to being an occasional, so I should probably ask—is the “drawing the wrong crowd” effect an observed outcome of political debate on LW, or a feared hypothetical?
Sorry, I thought the non-representativeness of religion as a topic of conversation here was obvious (for exactly the reasons you lay out in your comment) and so didn’t bother explicating them. Thanks for doing it for me.
It’s a feared hypothetical as far as I know.
I apparently don’t follow the argument I’m making, then.
Religion and politics are close analogues in their effect on the quality of discourse, and on social interaction generally.
LW takes a very bold stand on religion, contrary to the beliefs of a strong majority of people, and is perfectly okay with debate on the topic(if a bit dismissive of most of the counterarguments).
LW takes the most passive possible stand on politics, and has a well-established form of mockery for anyone who so much as brings it up in passing.
How does this possibly make any sense? There seems to be no “one thing at a time” doctrine, no censoring of controversial topics, and an active encouragement of making any sort of weird niche argument about absolutely anything that isn’t politics. The only explanation I can see is that this community has elevated a line mocking the standards of debate in politics into a social law, despite the general acceptance of “raising the waterline” on any of a hundred other topics, for no reason that I can see. Yes, politics is messy, and any sensible political debate between Bayesians needs to draw a very sharp line between what the probable outcomes of a given set of policies are and the utility of those outcomes, but that seems like something that the community will adapt to easily.
So where exactly is the stumbling block here? Or is this just a shibboleth? I am genuinely confused.
My concern is not about what a sensible political debate between Bayesians looks like, but about what political debate on a public Internet forum that anyone can join looks like.
I gather you think that has a high positive expected value here. (Is that right? It’s also possible that you think we have some obligation to engage in it, perhaps out of some sense of internal consistency or signaling considerations or something else, regardless of its expected value. But you seem to mostly be talking about likely consequences here.)
I think it has a low to moderate negative expected value.
That said, I might of course be wrong. Do you have any evidence for your evaluation that might be new to me?
I don’t think this forum is greatly appealing to the sort of people who usually bugger up political debate on the internet.
And frankly, my primary goal is to find some group where I can have a political debate that doesn’t make me want to rip my hair out in frustration. My secondary goal is understanding why this taboo exists, because I’m curious now. Not immensely valuable goals, but unless there’s a negative that would counteract the positive, still ones worth pursuing.
In general, I agree with you. It’s one of the reasons I like this forum. I expect it to become more appealing to them if political debate becomes a staple here. I consider that sufficient negative, though I understand that you either don’t share the expectation or don’t agree with my valuation of it.
I’m curious, though: why is having a political debate such a high-priority goal for you?
I like political debate. Always have, really. Getting one that isn’t built on cheap shots, anecdote-as-data, and other such cheese is very difficult, and I’ve usually found it to be greatly rewarding when it does happen. I want to investigate my political beliefs with actual data, and that’s amazingly hard to do normally. On top of that, I expect it’ll be great fun to watch “Bayesians cannot disagree” run into that particular brick wall, instead of the universal stuff like “There’s no evidence that God exists”.
It’s not the highest priority around, just happens to be one that I’d like to see, and one that seemed worth a few comments.
Ah, OK. Sure, agreed that it’s worth a few comments. I interpreted “primary goal” to imply a higher priority than you seem to have meant it.
Oh, sorry. The primary goal of making the comment, not the primary goal of my life.