I wanted to apologize for the post I made on Discussion yesterday. I hope one of the mods deletes it. I should have thought more carefully before posting something controversial like that. I made multiple errors in the process of writing the post. One of the biggest mistakes I made was mentioning the name of a certain organization in particular, in a way that might harm that organization.
In the future, before I post anything, I will ask myself, “Will this post raise or lower the sanity waterline?” The post I made clearly didn’t really do much for the former, and could easily have contributed to the latter. For that I am filled with regret.
I have a part-time job, and I will be donating at least $150 of my income to the organization I mentioned and possibly harmed in the previous post I made.
I’m not making this comment for the purpose of gaining back karma; I’m making it because I still want to be taken seriously in this community as a rationalist. I know that this may never happen, now, but if that’s the case, I can always just make another account. Less Wrong is amazing, and I like it here.
If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not taking risks, and that means you’re not going anywhere. The key is to make mistakes faster than the competition, so you have more chances to learn and win.
I’m not making this comment for the purpose of gaining back karma; I’m making it because I still want to be taken seriously in this community as a rationalist. I know that this may never happen, now, but if that’s the case, I can always just make another account.
Based on your handle I assumed you already had another account. I do suggest making another one now. There is no need to take that baggage with you—leave that kind of shit as anonymous.
There could be a plugin for this. Imagine that before sending a post, you have to answer a few questions, such as: “Your certainty that this post will move the sanity waterline in a positive direction”.
But we are only humans. We would learn very soon to ignore it, and just check the “right” answers automatically.
Maybe it would work better if it displayed only randomly, once in a few comments. And then the given comment could be sent to reviewers, who could inflict huge negative karma if they strongly disagree with the estimate.
Or perhaps there could be an option to click “I am sure this comment is useful and harmless” when sending a comment. A comment without this option gets +1 karma on upvote and −1 on downvote; a comment with this option gets +2 on upvote and −5 on downvote. This could make people think before posting.
I like the idea of a questionnaire that pops up randomly when making a comment at a rate of maybe 1-10 percent. possible example questions:
Do you think this comment is funny?
Do you think this comment is useful to the person you’re responding to?
Do you think this comment is useful to anyone but the person you’re responding to?
Do you think this comment will have positive karma? How much?
Would you make this comment to anyone’s face?
etc
Displaying one or more of these at a rate that makes you think but not at a rate that would be super annoying would be fun and provide some neat databases.
On the other hand I’m sure programming it would be a bitch.
But we are only humans. We would learn very soon to ignore it, and just check the “right” answers automatically.
There could be something preventing you from unthinkingly click “Yes”, akin to the option in LeechBlock whereby you have to copy a code of 32/64/128 random characters before being able to change the settings. (But that might backfire, by discouraging people from posting comments even when they would be unobjectionable.)
Or perhaps there could be an option to click “I am sure this comment is useful and harmless” when sending a comment. A comment without this option gets +1 karma on upvote and −1 on downvote; a comment with this option gets +2 on upvote and −5 on downvote. This could make people think before posting.
I wanted to apologize for the post I made on Discussion yesterday. I hope one of the mods deletes it. I should have thought more carefully before posting something controversial like that. I made multiple errors in the process of writing the post. One of the biggest mistakes I made was mentioning the name of a certain organization in particular, in a way that might harm that organization.
In the future, before I post anything, I will ask myself, “Will this post raise or lower the sanity waterline?” The post I made clearly didn’t really do much for the former, and could easily have contributed to the latter. For that I am filled with regret.
I have a part-time job, and I will be donating at least $150 of my income to the organization I mentioned and possibly harmed in the previous post I made.
I’m not making this comment for the purpose of gaining back karma; I’m making it because I still want to be taken seriously in this community as a rationalist. I know that this may never happen, now, but if that’s the case, I can always just make another account. Less Wrong is amazing, and I like it here.
-- John. W. Holt
Agree with the first part but not (the wording of) the second part. If you know beforehand that something would be a mistake, don’t be stupid.
But you shouldn’t necessarily trust your brain to accurately predict whether things will be mistakes.
The question is where you cut off. What chance of making a mistake is acceptable?
JOHN HOLT!
*makes touchdown signal*
Based on your handle I assumed you already had another account. I do suggest making another one now. There is no need to take that baggage with you—leave that kind of shit as anonymous.
That account has been used regularly or semi-regularly for months, so despite the name it’s not exactly a throwaway.
Yes, I will be making a new account. Good idea. This is my last comment from this one.
Can we still send you our … you know … merchandise?
Great! I’ll explicitly use that heuristic myself from now on (if I remember to).
There could be a plugin for this. Imagine that before sending a post, you have to answer a few questions, such as: “Your certainty that this post will move the sanity waterline in a positive direction”.
But we are only humans. We would learn very soon to ignore it, and just check the “right” answers automatically.
Maybe it would work better if it displayed only randomly, once in a few comments. And then the given comment could be sent to reviewers, who could inflict huge negative karma if they strongly disagree with the estimate.
Or perhaps there could be an option to click “I am sure this comment is useful and harmless” when sending a comment. A comment without this option gets +1 karma on upvote and −1 on downvote; a comment with this option gets +2 on upvote and −5 on downvote. This could make people think before posting.
I like the idea of a questionnaire that pops up randomly when making a comment at a rate of maybe 1-10 percent. possible example questions:
Do you think this comment is funny?
Do you think this comment is useful to the person you’re responding to?
Do you think this comment is useful to anyone but the person you’re responding to?
Do you think this comment will have positive karma? How much?
Would you make this comment to anyone’s face?
etc
Displaying one or more of these at a rate that makes you think but not at a rate that would be super annoying would be fun and provide some neat databases.
On the other hand I’m sure programming it would be a bitch.
There could be something preventing you from unthinkingly click “Yes”, akin to the option in LeechBlock whereby you have to copy a code of 32/64/128 random characters before being able to change the settings. (But that might backfire, by discouraging people from posting comments even when they would be unobjectionable.)
I would love that.