8ModusPonies8yEDIT: The below is based on my misunderstanding of terminology. It turns out
"retract" and "delete" are different things. Oops.
Huh. To me, that sounds like exactly sort of behavior a karma system is supposed
to encourage. Post worthless comment => comment downvoted => retract comment =>
future readers don't waste time reading it.
I retract [EDIT: delete] comments in high-traffic subthreads threads if they
don't get upvoted after a day or two. Should I stop doing this?
(Disclaimer: I did not see the original before it was deleted.)
6Douglas_Knight8yretract = strikethrough + disable voting
delete = make invisible (a second step after retraction)
The comment was retracted before receiving any votes, with the purpose of being
visible but not subject to karma (visible here
[http://lesswrong.com/user/mwengler/overview/?count=26&before=t1_83c1]). I am
surprised that this was not clear from the quote; perhaps it's a matter of
giving the benefit of the doubt to the user vs the moderator? It was deleted by
a moderator, not the user. I think this deletion is very clearly the right
action, to the point that I'm surprised that VN didn't delete it when he left
his reply.
If you want to avoid clutter, you should delete, not just retract, but it looks
to me that you do. If you change your mind, you should say that, not (just)
retract, and probably not delete. The main point of retraction is to let someone
pull out of the karma system without disrupting a conversation. In principle, an
edit saying that should discourage downvotes, but in practice it doesn't. Also,
for good or for ill, it discourages reading the comment a bit more than an edit.
6ModusPonies8yThanks for clearing up the terminology.
I think, if the parent had included something like "and therefore I am deleting
your post," I probably would not have been confused.
2mwengler8yYou think you're confused? Apparently when my comment was deleted by a
moderator, it is NOT deleted in my own view of the thread! So I am reading these
confused followup comments with people talking about my having deleted my
comment, and I'm staring at the page SEEING my comment there! It was only in a
different view where I saw my alread-deleted comment did not have a "delete"
option on it while a newer retracted comment I had made did show a delete option
that I guessed that my comment had been deleted, but with no indication on my
screen that it was not publicly visible.
1[anonymous]8yThe fact that non-moderators don't know it when a moderator has deleted their
comments is very confusing. Once an entire subthread I was in was deleted by
someone, but we only figured out what was going on because the other person was
a mod herself.
0OrphanWilde8yI consider the main point of retraction to be a reconsideration of the value of
a comment - that is, it should be used to say "This is, on further
consideration, wrong, or without value" while leaving the reasoning for why it
was wrong (or without value) in the first place intact, so other people don't
commit the same mistake. This is so regardless of whether the karma value of the
comment is positive or negative.
Karma values are, in general, a useful gauge, but not an ultimate gauge, of the
usefulness of a comment; they are in the end the consensus view of a post or
comment, which may or may not be "correct".
3jefftk8yYou don't need to do that. The voting system already allows good comments to
rise to the top, and because it gives a bonus for recent ones you don't need to
worry about your old unvotedup comments hiding new promising ones.
0[anonymous]8yEven though my retracted comment can't be downvoted, I've received 3 downvotes
on other comments because of this.
In any case, if you don't want people to work to the metric, why put the metric
in place?
And for those students of psychology: was I downvoted because I misused the
feature, or was I downvoted because I stated what I was doing? I have certainly
prophylactically retracted comments before without being downvoted, but in those
instances I didn't say why I was retracting.
I'll retract this comment too. If you want to downvote me for this it will cost
you extra keystrokes. Is it really a good use of your lesswrong.com time?
-2[anonymous]8yI disagree -- retracting a comment just means “I regret saying this”, whatever
the reasons for that.
OTOH, I think that as a matter of honesty one should still keep the original
text of the retracted comment intact (possibly with an explanation for the
retraction added), unless it is contains potential memetic hazards (even for
readers who know the writer has disavowed it), discloses confidential
information, or similar.
EDIT: Should have looked into this more carefully -- apparently he retracted the
comment immediately after posting it. Yes, I agree that's improper. Retracting.
2ikrase8yWhat the hell is that? It looks like some kind of pathetic... I don't know. I
know there has been some kind of wierd controversy about groupthink or
censorship or something but that kind of meme... It reminds me of a much toned
down version of the whole FTBullies thing.
8Larks8yI thought I'd read all of LW, but can't remember anyone ever linking to the
icelandic google's image seach for "no"
[http://www.google.is/search?q=no&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=y15CUfOiGomr0QXv9YGoDw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih=537]
Having only become involved with Lesswrong after it had split off, I've never seen the appeal of "Overcoming Bias." There are a few interesting posts, but a lot of dross and random weird political/incendiary things (like the above). All the good stuff seems to be expressed better elsewhere (mainly on LW).
Possibly this just means LW's voting system is doing its job, but I still notice I'm confused by the appeal. Can anyone enlighten me?
8Swimmy8yWell, I'll stick up for OB and Hanson.
Hanson posts about interesting things in a droll way. That's intentional, I
believe: sometimes he seems to be trying to get a rise out of people, but most
of the time he's trying to reduce emotional reactions to his posts.
He's really, really invested in ideas like evolution: simple theories that
explain lots of different phenomena. This is why we get lots and lots of posts
about signaling, near/far, and farmers/foragers. He thinks that these explain
far more than people currently give them credit, so he's trying to expand their
influence. If this seems boring, let me just point at that Hanson has provided
or advertised:
1) Probably the best explanation for why medical expenditures in the US grow
faster than health outcomes.
1.a) What I consider the best post
[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/medical-market-failures.html] on any blog
about what economists can say about health care reform
2) An explanation for traditional scifi aesthetics
[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/10/the-future-seems-shiny.html]
3) Why dumbed-down arguments work better in politics
[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/10/we-add-near-average-far.html]
4) An ev/psych hypothesis for left/right political divide
[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/05/forager-vs-farmer-morality.html]
5) An ev/psych hypothesis for the appeal of adventure novels and video game
settings [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/exploration-as.html]
6) Problems with the business world and how to fix them
[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/01/why-so-much-consulting.html] (and why
they won't be fixed [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/05/26522.html])
7) The dark side of cooperation
[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/04/the-dark-side-of-cooperation-2.html]
He's also interested in experimentation and clever solutions to social problems.
Hence,
1) A fantastic (but probably politically unworkable) way to solve the problem of
CEO value [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008
3coffeespoons8yOvercoming Bias can be interesting, but (as with the post on rape) I often feel
that people like me (with left/feminist leanings) are being trolled.
I don't think that Hanson is trolling so much as he's choosing deliberately provocative subjects to pontificate frankly on (I think any definition by which this would be considered "trolling" is inappropriately broad.)
I do think that he does tend to treat a few concepts as hammers which turn everything else into nails, and often bases his arguments on shaky premises. I don't think he has a very good sense of how far he can extrapolate before he's basically speculating blindly.
2ikrase8yNot sure. Overcoming bias is both Hanson's own blog (where he pushes ideas such
as ems (those are uploaded people, right?) and cynicism) and a general project
about rationality / what it says on the tin.
I've always liked the Less Wrong aristocracy (Compliment!) better as they often
seem to make fewer "theory class" mistakes.
5FeepingCreature8yTo my knowledge, ems are uploaded people self-optimizing for pure computational
efficiency in a sort of malthusian race to the bottom.
[edit] Correction, em is just a shorthand for whole-brain emulation. The
malthusian race was a proposed scenario, but not a necessary one.
0ikrase8ySeems like it would be easier to make expert systems (Possibly out of uploaded
infants or animals?) than use humans?
0FeepingCreature8yWell if expert systems make better ems [edit] uploads they'll outcompete the
human ems and dominate the market, so humans will self-modify to become more
like expert systems or stop getting allocated computing time.
(and that's why you don't run future supertech on capitalism!)
-2ikrase8yWaitwhat? Also, are we calling everything an em?
What are all these people computing in the first place? Also, it seems like the
obvious choice is for a human to own several expert-system or trained animal ems
and rent their services or something. ????
1FeepingCreature8ySorry, I said that wrong. Also, the human is strictly overhead. There's no
reason to expect we'd necessarily be better than an expert system at owning and
managing expert systems.
What they're computing in the first place, I have no idea. I think the
assumption is that there'll be a computing-based economy of any kind, not
necessarily what the specifics of it are. And data mining is already an enormous
industry, for instance.
0ikrase8yGAAAAAAHHH!
I think somebody forgot to have something to protect! Is this Hanson's actual
idea or your idea of the consequences. Frankly I expect an energy-and-matter
based economy.
0Larks8yThis is a positive prediction, not a normative one.
-2ikrase8yHad heard 'and that's why you don't run future supertech on captialism' and
previously heard about Hanson being strictly libertarian possibly in a bad way,
so thought that he was somehow accepting of this stuff.
0FeepingCreature8yI am not very confident I'm accurately representing his position. Really, I'm
hoping somebody'll correct me if I'm too far offbase. Grain of salt, go read his
posts on the topic, etc etc.
-1IlyaShpitser8ySee, it's things like this that makes LW seem creepy to me.
1somervta8yAre you saying that you dislike the LW aristocracy, or that you dislike the fact
that LW has an aristocracy?
2Pfft8yCharlieSheen
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/6ph/the_importance_of_not_getting_the_joke/4j02], I
guess?
1khafra8yA non-neurotypical person. This one [http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/54p4/]
displays something I'd actually call humor; the rest are just OB references or
"take that, OB!" references.
5thescoundrel8yMy complaint is that is either a euphemism for autistic (in which case, just say
autistic- if that feel "Squicky", re-evaluate your statement), or it is so vague
as to lose all meaning- someone with bi-polar disorder is non-neurotypical, but
is no more likely to have made these than anyone else.
If you do mean specifically autistic, you may want to broaden your understanding
of autism. Autism is not standard, it can present in many, many ways, including
many that would not create this type of image. The images are indicative of a
poor grasp of humor, and a poor grasp of the original subject matter, but I do
not see a higher probability for an autistic person to create these against the
general population.
2wedrifid8y(It likely isn't your intention but I'm a little uncomfortable having these
'you' claims as replies to me when it isn't me to whom they apply.)
0thescoundrel8yMy apologies, I was meaning a more general "you", as in "the person who uses
this phrase". Not directed at you you, just the common you, and you are
certainly not the you I meant for "you" to refer to.
1wedrifid8yNot actually true (in the specific example, although I support your general
objection about terminology misuse). In a hypo-manic phase someone is more
likely to get caught up with the kinda-clever notion of making Hanson memes and
get carried away dumping all his ideas, exercising less judgement and restraint
than he otherwise would. (Of course some time later they would later be able to
look at their work and see why it isn't funny and delete it. They are also more
likely than average to come up with a whole bunch of awesome memes.)
0thescoundrel8yFair enough- I should have chosen a clearer example.
0wedrifid8ySociopathy would be a perfect example (in the sense that I would expect them to
be less likely to make terrible jokes like that). Dyslexia would work too.
Definitely not schizophrenia though.
2Matt_Simpson8yI agree, but I'm not sure it was intended as an insult. The effect in (some)
readers is similar though, so maybe I'm splitting hairs.
-1khafra8yYou're one of the last people I would have expected to show strong moral
disapproval for a neutrally-phrased, true statement. Which of these claims
offends you more? "People on the autism spectrum usually have problems
understanding or generating statements considered humorous by neurotypicals," or
"Obese people usually have problems climbing several flights of stairs quickly"?
4wedrifid8yThe phrasing may be neutral but the decision to use it in the particular context
was not, and that conveyed social meaning of the type that I felt it appropriate
to assert opposition to. (A thought that I recall crossing my mind was "Hmm...
this is getting dangerously close to 'non-neurotypical person' being used where
'retard' once may have been, before that became a politically incorrect move.")
I am perhaps less confident of the Autism diagnostic capability of the memes in
question. In fact, I might consider the fact that the person follows
OvercomingBias at all to be stronger evidence!
Neither of those offends me.
Interestingly, that one is nothing more than a quote from HPMOR. From chapter 63:
But "pessimistic" wasn't the correct word to describe Professor Quirrell's problem - if a problem it truly was, and not the superior wisdom of experience. But to Harry it looked like Professor Quirrell was constantly interpreting everything in the worst possible light. If you handed Professor Quirrell a glass that was 90% full, he'd tell you that the 10% empty part proved that no one really cared about water.
2ikrase8yHe writes Overcoming Bias. Is rather cynical, predicts future involving (i
think) libertarianism and stuff that sounds morally bad to present day
sensibilities.
Had a gaffe a while ago where he ignored mental trauma related to bodily
autonomy, expressed confusion about rape being considered worse than cuckoldry.
1ChristianKl8yOn the right hand side of LessWrong, if you scroll down you see Overcoming Bias
mentioned as sister site.
0Ben Pace8yMore importantly, it's where EY started blogging when he was sponsored by the
Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford (he moved here after finishing the first
few sequences).
9wedrifid8yWhere "first few" means "Basically all of them". There are a few later additions
but the bulk (from when he was writing a post a day or somesuch) was all
OvercomingBias.
3ESRogs8yNote: it is meant that he moved to LessWrong from Overcoming Bias, not that he
moved to the States from Oxford. :)
5[anonymous]8y[Meta] Speaking as someone who upvoted this, (edited for clarity) why did
someone downvote? Not everyone knows what Hanson looks like. This isn't the
first time I've noticed on LW an answer having more karma than the question,
which is a Thing That Bothers Me. (Although I do think that there is such thing
as a stupid question, this isn't obviously one of them.)
-1ChristianKl8yIn general posts in discussion are expected to contain more information than a
simple link. As the time of this writing the post with the most upvotes is
saying "I think this kind of submission is better suited in an open thread. :)".
0[anonymous]8yI'm confused as to the placement of the above comment.
1Randy_M8yWhy are you confused? It's a perfectly obvious that it is misplaced due to prior
poster's confusion about your post's target. ;)
-2Error8yHe looks a bit like Jack Nicholson in Batman, going by that picture. O_o
I'm not sure about the downvote. I'm upvoting the question on the grounds that
noticing confusion is good.
In some of those there's text covering his eyes and in some there's text covering his mouth, making it even clearer how his eyes are frowning while his mouth is smiling.
I think this kind of submission is better suited in an open thread. :)
I'm not a fan of this.
You might even say I find it OBnoxious.
(folks, this does not deserve to be at +4. +1, tops)
(... so you send it up to +6. facepalm)
This is a misuse of the retraction feature. Don't do this.
And of course. (Not great either.)
... damn, we are never going to live down that rape bullshit are we. What the hell, Hanson?
Have to say I don't like it. Wonder who made these.
Having only become involved with Lesswrong after it had split off, I've never seen the appeal of "Overcoming Bias." There are a few interesting posts, but a lot of dross and random weird political/incendiary things (like the above). All the good stuff seems to be expressed better elsewhere (mainly on LW).
Possibly this just means LW's voting system is doing its job, but I still notice I'm confused by the appeal. Can anyone enlighten me?
I don't think that Hanson is trolling so much as he's choosing deliberately provocative subjects to pontificate frankly on (I think any definition by which this would be considered "trolling" is inappropriately broad.)
I do think that he does tend to treat a few concepts as hammers which turn everything else into nails, and often bases his arguments on shaky premises. I don't think he has a very good sense of how far he can extrapolate before he's basically speculating blindly.
Referenced post
That isn't a phrase I prefer to see used as (what amounts to) an insult.
Interestingly, that one is nothing more than a quote from HPMOR. From chapter 63:
Am I correct in my impression that Rational!Quirrel is in part inspired by Hanson?
I notice that I am confused.
Who is this?
Robin Hanson.
In some of those there's text covering his eyes and in some there's text covering his mouth, making it even clearer how his eyes are frowning while his mouth is smiling.
What is the one about Less Wrong being a dare referring to?
The link in the OP is broken. This one is better.