4 ms·

He explained stuff plainly, using references (sci-fi, japanese manga and anime) that are popular among a fairy restricted set of people. It's not academic, and

He explained stuff plainly, using references (sci-fi, japanese manga and anime) that are popular among a fairy restricted set of people. It's not academic, and it's not all-inclusive. Of course it will sound like a weird cult. I'm not sure why anybody would have any problem with that.

vertex-four 10y ago
Mostly that some of us have had very poor experiences with them while trying to mind our own business. It's like living next to a cult's compound, and therefore having more concrete bad experiences with them than someone in the next city. In my case, an IRC channel that I previously enjoyed (relationship-related) was unofficially absorbed into LessWrong's network of channels. This resulted in people treating it as a meat market despite being asked not to, then a debate platform despite being asked not to, some refused the existence of trans people to their faces because they couldn't logic it out, we had one argue in favour of cheating in a channel that explicitly mentioned openness and honesty in the topic, they damn near had a riot if we ever dared ban one of them for being spectacularly awful, and they generally put the value of other people's emotions at close to 0 in their messed-up logic for interacting with the world. This carried on for months. Apparently after I left most of them were finally banned, though not before a good many of the less awful people in the channel left for good. This was the first major issue the channel had in four years of its existence. More generally, many people don't enjoy conflict, and the LessWrong way of discussing anything seems to be to turn it into a two-sided debate. Even when you're trying to discuss who you think you are, turning it into you defending yourself from attack. The concept of having a constructive conversation, seems to have entirely slipped past them, never mind the idea that not everything has to be debated right then and there. Unfortunately, this isn't just my experience - various others I've spoken to have come across exactly the same sort of thing. Hence the extreme dislike from some people. I'm not sure whether the community explicitly pushes this way of interacting with the world, or whether it just attracts assholes and gives them a "logical" reason to be assholes, though.
- loup-vaillant 10y ago
  Well… I've mainly limited myself with LessWrong top-level posts so far, so I haven't observed those problems first hand. I may even have been part of the problem for a while, posting semi-relevant LW links all over the place. I have since learned to focus my arguments into something that doesn't require having read the sequences. Maybe no longer frequenting LW helped.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
There's also the whole "Roko's Basilisk" incident.

vertex-four 10y ago

Mostly that some of us have had very poor experiences with them while trying to mind our own business. It's like living next to a cult's compound, and therefore having more concrete bad experiences with them than someone in the next city. In my case, an IRC channel that I previously enjoyed (relationship-related) was unofficially absorbed into LessWrong's network of channels. This resulted in people treating it as a meat market despite being asked not to, then a debate platform despite being asked not to, some refused the existence of trans people to their faces because they couldn't logic it out, we had one argue in favour of cheating in a channel that explicitly mentioned openness and honesty in the topic, they damn near had a riot if we ever dared ban one of them for being spectacularly awful, and they generally put the value of other people's emotions at close to 0 in their messed-up logic for interacting with the world. This carried on for months. Apparently after I left most of them were finally banned, though not before a good many of the less awful people in the channel left for good. This was the first major issue the channel had in four years of its existence. More generally, many people don't enjoy conflict, and the LessWrong way of discussing anything seems to be to turn it into a two-sided debate. Even when you're trying to discuss who you think you are, turning it into you defending yourself from attack. The concept of having a constructive conversation, seems to have entirely slipped past them, never mind the idea that not everything has to be debated right then and there. Unfortunately, this isn't just my experience - various others I've spoken to have come across exactly the same sort of thing. Hence the extreme dislike from some people. I'm not sure whether the community explicitly pushes this way of interacting with the world, or whether it just attracts assholes and gives them a "logical" reason to be assholes, though.

loup-vaillant 10y ago
Well… I've mainly limited myself with LessWrong top-level posts so far, so I haven't observed those problems first hand. I may even have been part of the problem for a while, posting semi-relevant LW links all over the place. I have since learned to focus my arguments into something that doesn't require having read the sequences. Maybe no longer frequenting LW helped.

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

There's also the whole "Roko's Basilisk" incident.