I made no claim that those are the only two possibilities. But, for what it’s worth, here are the options I actually see. First, “legitimate” ones where someone read what I wrote, thought it was bad, and voted it down on that ground:
Perhaps I made a dumb mistake, or someone thought I did. (Not at all unlikely; I make mistakes, and so do other people, and downvoting something for being wrong is not uncommon behaviour on LW. Further, this is a discussion involving fiddly reasoning that it’s easy to get wrong, making it more likely that I’ve done something dumb and more likely that someone else wrongly thinks I have.)
Perhaps I was (or someone thought I was) pointlessly rude, or something of the kind. (I can’t see any reason why anyone would think that in this instance, though.)
Perhaps there is (or someone thinks there is) some other thing badly wrong with my comment. (I can’t think what.)
Then there are the options where the downvote was not on the basis of (actual or perceived) problems with the comment itself:
Perhaps someone downvoted it purely by mistake—finger-slip or whatever. That’s always possible, but I’ve seen no sign that this happens with non-negligible frequency on LW. (It happens fairly often on Hacker News, but their UI design puts the upvote and downvote arrows very close together and provides no way to correct accidental votes.)
Perhaps someone downvoted it purely at random. Also always possible, but it seems like a very odd thing to do and I’ve not encountered any evidence that that’s a thing that happens here. (Though perhaps I shouldn’t expect to have; it might be very hard to spot.)
Perhaps someone downvoted it for the sake of downvoting me: they dislike other things I’ve written, or have a personal grudge against me, or something. (I have had this happen multiple times before, often shortly after an exchange of comments with Eugine/Azathoth/Ra; in at least one case and I think more than one, a moderator has confirmed that Eugine/Azathoth/Ra has been downvoting substantial numbers of my comments in fairly rapid succession; Eugine/Azathoth/Ra has been observed behaving in a similar way towards other people, and has actually had three identities kicked of LW for such behaviour already. So the prior for this is not small. And, as it happens, I have recently been disagreeing elsewhere on LW with someone who shows signs of being the latest incarnation of Eugine/Azathoth/Ra.)
Of course it’s possible that this is the explanation but it isn’t Eugine/Azathoth/Ra. But I don’t know of any good evidence that there’s anyone else engaging in such behaviour, and in particular I haven’t noticed any obvious signs of anyone else doing it to me.
Perhaps someone downvoted it because they don’t like the topic: they think LW shouldn’t be discussing such things. (Unlikely in this case; this is a very typical LW topic, and I don’t see other comments in the discussion getting mysterious downvotes.)
Perhaps there was some other kind of reason that I haven’t thought of. (Always possible but, well, I haven’t thought of any plausible candidates.)
So. It looks to me like there are lots of low-probability explanations, plus “someone thinks I made a dumb mistake”, plus “Eugine/Azathoth/Ra wanted to downvote something I wrote”, both of which are things that have happened fairly often and good candidates for what’s happened here. And if someone thinks I made a dumb mistake, it seems like explaining what would be a good idea (whether the mistake is mine or theirs). Hence my comment.
(This feels like about two orders of magnitude more analysis than this trivial situation warrants, but no matter.)
I made no claim that those are the only two possibilities.
On reflection, I see that you’re right; I inferred too much from your comment. What you said was that you’d be interested in an explanation of your error, if and only if you committed one; followed by asking the separate, largely independent question of whether Eugine/Azathoth/Ra/Lion was punishing you for not being right-wing enough again. I erroneously read your comment as saying that you’d be interested in (1) an explanation of your error or (2) the absence of such an explanation, which would prove the Eugine hypothesis by elimination. Sorry for jumping the gun and forcing you into a bunch of unnecessary analysis.
Indeed I was not claiming that the absence of an explanation would prove it was Eugine. It might simply mean that whoever downvoted me didn’t read what I wrote, or that for whatever reason they didn’t think it would be worth their while to explain. Or the actual reason for the downvote could be one of those low-probability ones.
One correction, though: I would be interested in an explanation of my error if and only if whoever downvoted me thinks I committed one. Even if in fact I didn’t, it would be good to know if I failed to communicate clearly, and good for them to discover their error.
And now I shall drop the subject. (Unless someone does in fact indicate that they downvoted me for making a mistake and some sort of correction or clarification seems useful.)
Ah, I hadn’t taken in that the person complaining rudely that I hadn’t considered all the possibilities for why I got downvoted might be the person who downvoted me. In retrospect, I should have.
Anyway (and with some trepidation since I don’t much relish getting into an argument with someone who may possibly just take satisfaction in causing petty harm): no, it doesn’t look to me as if casebash’s arguments are much like 2+2=5, nor do I think my comments are as obvious as pointing out that actually it’s 4. The sort of expected-utility-maximizing that’s generally taken around these parts to be the heart of rationality really does have difficulties in the presence of infinities, and that does seem like it’s potentially a problem, and whether or not casebash’s specific objections are right they are certainly pointing in the direction of something that could use more thought.
I do not think I have ever encountered any case in which deliberately making a problem worse to draw attention to it has actually been beneficial overall. (There are some kinda-analogous things in realms other than human affairs, such as vaccination, or deliberately starting small forest fires to prevent bigger ones, but the analogy isn’t very close.)
If indeed LW has become irredeemably shit, then amplifying the problem won’t fix it (see: definition of “irredeemably”) so you might as well just fuck off and do something less pointless with your time. If it’s become redeemably shit, adding more shit seems unlikely to be the best way of redeeming it so again I warmly encourage you to do something less useless instead. But these things seem so obvious—dare I say it, so much like pointing out that 2+2=4? -- that I wonder whether, deep down, under the trollish exterior, there lurks a hankering for something better. Come to the Light Side! We have cookies.
(retracted)
I made no claim that those are the only two possibilities. But, for what it’s worth, here are the options I actually see. First, “legitimate” ones where someone read what I wrote, thought it was bad, and voted it down on that ground:
Perhaps I made a dumb mistake, or someone thought I did. (Not at all unlikely; I make mistakes, and so do other people, and downvoting something for being wrong is not uncommon behaviour on LW. Further, this is a discussion involving fiddly reasoning that it’s easy to get wrong, making it more likely that I’ve done something dumb and more likely that someone else wrongly thinks I have.)
Perhaps I was (or someone thought I was) pointlessly rude, or something of the kind. (I can’t see any reason why anyone would think that in this instance, though.)
Perhaps there is (or someone thinks there is) some other thing badly wrong with my comment. (I can’t think what.)
Then there are the options where the downvote was not on the basis of (actual or perceived) problems with the comment itself:
Perhaps someone downvoted it purely by mistake—finger-slip or whatever. That’s always possible, but I’ve seen no sign that this happens with non-negligible frequency on LW. (It happens fairly often on Hacker News, but their UI design puts the upvote and downvote arrows very close together and provides no way to correct accidental votes.)
Perhaps someone downvoted it purely at random. Also always possible, but it seems like a very odd thing to do and I’ve not encountered any evidence that that’s a thing that happens here. (Though perhaps I shouldn’t expect to have; it might be very hard to spot.)
Perhaps someone downvoted it for the sake of downvoting me: they dislike other things I’ve written, or have a personal grudge against me, or something. (I have had this happen multiple times before, often shortly after an exchange of comments with Eugine/Azathoth/Ra; in at least one case and I think more than one, a moderator has confirmed that Eugine/Azathoth/Ra has been downvoting substantial numbers of my comments in fairly rapid succession; Eugine/Azathoth/Ra has been observed behaving in a similar way towards other people, and has actually had three identities kicked of LW for such behaviour already. So the prior for this is not small. And, as it happens, I have recently been disagreeing elsewhere on LW with someone who shows signs of being the latest incarnation of Eugine/Azathoth/Ra.)
Of course it’s possible that this is the explanation but it isn’t Eugine/Azathoth/Ra. But I don’t know of any good evidence that there’s anyone else engaging in such behaviour, and in particular I haven’t noticed any obvious signs of anyone else doing it to me.
Perhaps someone downvoted it because they don’t like the topic: they think LW shouldn’t be discussing such things. (Unlikely in this case; this is a very typical LW topic, and I don’t see other comments in the discussion getting mysterious downvotes.)
Perhaps there was some other kind of reason that I haven’t thought of. (Always possible but, well, I haven’t thought of any plausible candidates.)
So. It looks to me like there are lots of low-probability explanations, plus “someone thinks I made a dumb mistake”, plus “Eugine/Azathoth/Ra wanted to downvote something I wrote”, both of which are things that have happened fairly often and good candidates for what’s happened here. And if someone thinks I made a dumb mistake, it seems like explaining what would be a good idea (whether the mistake is mine or theirs). Hence my comment.
(This feels like about two orders of magnitude more analysis than this trivial situation warrants, but no matter.)
On reflection, I see that you’re right; I inferred too much from your comment. What you said was that you’d be interested in an explanation of your error, if and only if you committed one; followed by asking the separate, largely independent question of whether Eugine/Azathoth/Ra/Lion was punishing you for not being right-wing enough again. I erroneously read your comment as saying that you’d be interested in (1) an explanation of your error or (2) the absence of such an explanation, which would prove the Eugine hypothesis by elimination. Sorry for jumping the gun and forcing you into a bunch of unnecessary analysis.
No problem.
Indeed I was not claiming that the absence of an explanation would prove it was Eugine. It might simply mean that whoever downvoted me didn’t read what I wrote, or that for whatever reason they didn’t think it would be worth their while to explain. Or the actual reason for the downvote could be one of those low-probability ones.
One correction, though: I would be interested in an explanation of my error if and only if whoever downvoted me thinks I committed one. Even if in fact I didn’t, it would be good to know if I failed to communicate clearly, and good for them to discover their error.
And now I shall drop the subject. (Unless someone does in fact indicate that they downvoted me for making a mistake and some sort of correction or clarification seems useful.)
(retracted)
Ah, I hadn’t taken in that the person complaining rudely that I hadn’t considered all the possibilities for why I got downvoted might be the person who downvoted me. In retrospect, I should have.
Anyway (and with some trepidation since I don’t much relish getting into an argument with someone who may possibly just take satisfaction in causing petty harm): no, it doesn’t look to me as if casebash’s arguments are much like 2+2=5, nor do I think my comments are as obvious as pointing out that actually it’s 4. The sort of expected-utility-maximizing that’s generally taken around these parts to be the heart of rationality really does have difficulties in the presence of infinities, and that does seem like it’s potentially a problem, and whether or not casebash’s specific objections are right they are certainly pointing in the direction of something that could use more thought.
I do not think I have ever encountered any case in which deliberately making a problem worse to draw attention to it has actually been beneficial overall. (There are some kinda-analogous things in realms other than human affairs, such as vaccination, or deliberately starting small forest fires to prevent bigger ones, but the analogy isn’t very close.)
If indeed LW has become irredeemably shit, then amplifying the problem won’t fix it (see: definition of “irredeemably”) so you might as well just fuck off and do something less pointless with your time. If it’s become redeemably shit, adding more shit seems unlikely to be the best way of redeeming it so again I warmly encourage you to do something less useless instead. But these things seem so obvious—dare I say it, so much like pointing out that 2+2=4? -- that I wonder whether, deep down, under the trollish exterior, there lurks a hankering for something better. Come to the Light Side! We have cookies.
I’ll let the rest of your comment stand, but:
2 + 2 = 2 + 2 + 0. A number subtracted from itself equals 0, and infinity is a number, so 2 + 2 = 2 + 2 + ∞ - ∞. Infinity plus one is still infinity, so 2 + 2 = 2 + 2 + (∞ + 1) - ∞ = 2 + 2 + (1 + ∞) - ∞ = (2 + 2 + 1) + (∞ - ∞) = 2 + 2 + 1 + 0 = 5. So nyah.
(Sorry, casebash, but it was too good a setup to ignore.)
LOL.
(retracted)
I can has raisin?