Finished the survey. Didn’t answer the SSC question even though I read it regularly because I plan to take the edited version when it’s posted there, and I also didn’t answer the digit ratio question.
blacktrance
I think LW’s degradation is primarily in Main (interesting Main posts are rare these days), and has nothing to do with Open Threads. If anything, Open Threads help LW because they make community participation easier with a lower barrier to entry for posting.
I have taken the survey.
Support for a higher minimum wage, increased immigration, and feminism are all typically left-wing positions, so it’s not surprising that they’re found together.
Clearly, we haven’t been doing enough to increase other risks. We can’t let pandemic stay in the lead.
Supporting neo-reaction because SJWs are bad is a severe case of false dichotomy.
As “open-mindedness” is commonly used, it’s a conflation of three different concepts: inquisitive-mindedness, genuine open-mindedness, and tolerance. Inquisitive-mindedness sounds like what you’re advocating—it’s willingness to consider an idea and accept or reject it, and having rejected it to be less likely to consider again. Genuine open-mindedness is vaguely accepting without critical examination. Tolerance isn’t epistemological, it’s ethical and political—there’s no necessary connection between willingness to accept ideas and letting people do what they want in their personal lives.
I second the idea of Slate Star Codex being crossposted here. Yvain makes good posts there, and LW is better formatted for discussion (better comment threading, etc).
“I’m part of a community, you live in a bubble, he’s out of touch.”
involvement in LW pulls people away from non-LWers. One way this happens is by encouraging contempt for less-rational Normals.
Alternative hypothesis: Once a certain kind of person realizes that something like the LW community is possible and even available, they will gravitate towards it—not because LW is cultish, but because the people, social norms, and ideas appeal to them, and once that kind of interaction is available, it’s a preferred substitute for some previously engaged-in interaction. From the outside, this may look like contempt for Normals. But from personal experience, I can say that form the inside it feels like you’ve been eating gruel all your life, and that’s what you were used to, but then you discovered actual delicious food and don’t need to eat gruel anymore.
Regarding scope sensitivity and the oily bird test, one man’s modus ponens is another’s modus tollens. Maybe if you’re willing to save one bird, you should be willing to donate to save many more birds. But maybe the reverse is true—you’re not willing to save thousands and thousands of birds, so you shouldn’t save one bird, either. You can shut up and multiply, but you can also shut up and divide.
There are three parts to this question, and I recommend asking them separately.
All the productivity posts on LW that I’ve read, I found mildly disturbing. They all give a sense of excessive regimentation, as well as giving up enjoyable activity—sacrificing a lot for a single goal (or a few goals). I’m sure it’s good for getting work done, but there’s more to life than work—there’s actually enjoying life, having fun, etc.
I’m disappointed to see that most of my suggestions weren’t used.
To contribute a “trick” that, in my experience, makes this easier, when you hear a political point, disentangle the empirical claims from the normative claims, and think to yourself, “Even if their empirical claims are correct, that doesn’t necessarily mean I should accept their normative claims. I should examine the two separately.”
Is it too meta to say “asking questions like this in a place where they’re likely to be answered correctly”?
Maybe it’s straightforward to discover when the fetus can feel pain, but it’s not straightforward that being able to feel pain should be the cutoff point.
I’m pro-infanticide, but there’s also a consistent position of “the line between not having and having a right to not be killed is crossed while in the womb”. Another plausible position is evictionism—“Regardless of whether you have the right to kill a fetus, you aren’t obligated to support it and are free to expel it if you wish”.
Slate Star Codex comments have smart people and a significant overlap with LW, but the interface isn’t great (comment threading stops after it gets to a certain level of depth, etc). Alternatively, it may help to be more selective on reddit—no default subreddits, for example.
[Please read the OP before voting. Special voting rules apply.]
Human value is not complex, wireheading is the optimal state, and Fun Theory is mostly wrong.