3 ms·

> There are some thoughtful subs (star something codex) I had to unsubscribe from that sub. In the past you could find some potentially interesting conversatio

> There are some thoughtful subs (star something codex) I had to unsubscribe from that sub. In the past you could find some potentially interesting conversations with knowledgeable responses if you sifted through the noise. Lately, the general vibe has become uncomfortably welcoming of incel-adjacent topics or exploring weird alternative medicine ideas. The general vibe is that "normie" stuff is bad, contrarian takes are default good, and "rationalists" are the only ones who see the world for how it really is. The contrarian superiority is becoming vaguely reminiscent of conspiracy theorist circles. Everything is written in pseudo-intellectual style that makes it feel extra truthy, despite being recycled content from other domains. I finally unsubscribed after a series of posts where posters wrote at length about their frustrations with dating, blaming their failures on women and women's behaviors as if women were a foreign species. The straw that broke the camel's back was when someone complained about taking women out on dates and not receiving sex in return for their effort, which I assumed would have been readily downvoted and dismissed. Instead, it was upvoted (100+ votes) and most of the upvoted comments agreed with the OP's take. When weird incel ideology becomes front and center accepted in a community, I'm out.

mancerayder 4y ago
>Everything is written in pseudo-intellectual style that makes it feel extra truthy, despite being recycled content from other domains. I think I know what you mean about that sub and some slightly oddball 'aggrieved men' sort of pile-on conversations. To your point here - that's one of the points I was making above, that I'm coming to realize (and perhaps there's a bit of looking in the mirror here) that good writing can cover up shoddy thinking. I've made a concerted effort to sometimes pause when I'm replying to something, and look things up to make sure what what I just said is true is actually true. Probably because I ran into smart people who questioned things here on HN. One time I was replying to some sort of big article/thread in a real estate sub which touched upon housing affordability, the number of unregulated versus unregulated units in my city. I replied with a pretty neutral tone and linked the city's yearly datasheet in a PDF format which backed up what I said in terms of the breakdown of housing types in the city. There was a pie graph in the PDF document. Well, I got downvoted to grey/invisible and there were a ton of replies in the style of "How arrogant that you think you're going to make us read THAT." I thought it was incredible how the people reacted.
- mixedCase 4y ago
  I do not know what kind of comment you wrote, so I in the interest of curiosity I'll ask: Could it be that instead of stating in the comment both the relevant, precise figures and a conclusion derived from them, you merely linked out to the PDF in a way that only by reading the PDF could your point be fully seen? By and large, on forums and social media it is heavily frowned upon to rely on outlinks and open ended reasoning. As in the line of thought: "if you will not state your point clearly for everyone to see at a glance and then back it up with sources, why should I bother?". It may seem unreasonable or even anti-intellectual at first until you draw parallels with in-person discussion: imagine someone describing their point in detail for 10 minutes only for the other person to hand over a whole book and say "you're ignorant, go read this and learn why you're so wrong". I will repeat again: I do not know what you actually said in that comment, but I've seen this play out a few times and my gut tells me that unless the point was extremely controversial, a deluge of downvotes is likely explained by this scenario.
- wrs 4y ago
  > good writing can cover up shoddy thinking I’m afraid this is the primary value proposition for ChatGPT. It’s a power tool for writers like that. So the signal to noise ratio is about to get much worse.

mancerayder 4y ago

>Everything is written in pseudo-intellectual style that makes it feel extra truthy, despite being recycled content from other domains. I think I know what you mean about that sub and some slightly oddball 'aggrieved men' sort of pile-on conversations. To your point here - that's one of the points I was making above, that I'm coming to realize (and perhaps there's a bit of looking in the mirror here) that good writing can cover up shoddy thinking. I've made a concerted effort to sometimes pause when I'm replying to something, and look things up to make sure what what I just said is true is actually true. Probably because I ran into smart people who questioned things here on HN. One time I was replying to some sort of big article/thread in a real estate sub which touched upon housing affordability, the number of unregulated versus unregulated units in my city. I replied with a pretty neutral tone and linked the city's yearly datasheet in a PDF format which backed up what I said in terms of the breakdown of housing types in the city. There was a pie graph in the PDF document. Well, I got downvoted to grey/invisible and there were a ton of replies in the style of "How arrogant that you think you're going to make us read THAT." I thought it was incredible how the people reacted.

mixedCase 4y ago
I do not know what kind of comment you wrote, so I in the interest of curiosity I'll ask: Could it be that instead of stating in the comment both the relevant, precise figures and a conclusion derived from them, you merely linked out to the PDF in a way that only by reading the PDF could your point be fully seen? By and large, on forums and social media it is heavily frowned upon to rely on outlinks and open ended reasoning. As in the line of thought: "if you will not state your point clearly for everyone to see at a glance and then back it up with sources, why should I bother?". It may seem unreasonable or even anti-intellectual at first until you draw parallels with in-person discussion: imagine someone describing their point in detail for 10 minutes only for the other person to hand over a whole book and say "you're ignorant, go read this and learn why you're so wrong". I will repeat again: I do not know what you actually said in that comment, but I've seen this play out a few times and my gut tells me that unless the point was extremely controversial, a deluge of downvotes is likely explained by this scenario.
wrs 4y ago
> good writing can cover up shoddy thinking I’m afraid this is the primary value proposition for ChatGPT. It’s a power tool for writers like that. So the signal to noise ratio is about to get much worse.