This post did generate a lot of pushback. It has more disagree votes than agree votes, the top comment by karma argues against some of its claims and is heavily upvoted and agree-voted, and it led to multiple response posts including one that reaches the opposite conclusion and got more karma & agree votes than this one.
I agree that this somewhat rebuts what Raemon says. However, I think a large part of Raemon’s point—which your pushback doesn’t address—is that Bentham’s post still received a highly positive karma score (85 when Raemon came upon it).
My sense is that karma shapes the Forum incentive landscape pretty strongly—i.e., authors are incentivized to write the kind of post that they expect will get upvoted. (I remember Lizka[1] mentioning, somewhere, that she/the Forum team found (via user interviews?) that authors tend to care quite a lot about karma.) So, considering how Bentham’s posts are getting upvoted, I kind of expect them to continue writing similar posts with similar reasoning. (Further, I kind of expect others to see Bentham’s writing+reasoning style as a style that ‘works,’ and to copy it.)
The question then becomes: Is this a good outcome? Do we want Forum discourse to look more like this type of post? Is the ‘wisdom of the EA Forum voting crowd’ where we want it to be? (Or, conversely, might there be an undesirable dynamic going on, such as tyranny of the marginal voter?) I have my own takes, here. I invite readers to likewise reflect on these questions, and to perhaps adjust your voting behaviour accordingly.
I agree that this somewhat rebuts what Raemon says. However, I think a large part of Raemon’s point—which your pushback doesn’t address—is that Bentham’s post still received a highly positive karma score (85 when Raemon came upon it).
My sense is that karma shapes the Forum incentive landscape pretty strongly—i.e., authors are incentivized to write the kind of post that they expect will get upvoted. (I remember Lizka[1] mentioning, somewhere, that she/the Forum team found (via user interviews?) that authors tend to care quite a lot about karma.) So, considering how Bentham’s posts are getting upvoted, I kind of expect them to continue writing similar posts with similar reasoning. (Further, I kind of expect others to see Bentham’s writing+reasoning style as a style that ‘works,’ and to copy it.)
The question then becomes: Is this a good outcome? Do we want Forum discourse to look more like this type of post? Is the ‘wisdom of the EA Forum voting crowd’ where we want it to be? (Or, conversely, might there be an undesirable dynamic going on, such as tyranny of the marginal voter?) I have my own takes, here. I invite readers to likewise reflect on these questions, and to perhaps adjust your voting behaviour accordingly.
our former Forum Khaleesi