Currently, excluding my automatic upvote, this post has 3 votes and −4 karma, if you exclude my automatic vote. I’m quite surprised by that (partly because the post doesn’t really make claims or tell people to do things, so it seems harder for it to be controversial), and I’d be very interested to hear why people/a person who downvoted it did so.
(I mean this sincerely, rather than just as a complaint or to start an argument or something.)
One hypothesis is just that I’ve posted several low-effort posts about books lately—asking for and collecting recommendations, sharing notes, and then this post—and maybe someone just doesn’t find them useful and is sick of seeing them? By default, I’d guess that someone who simply isn’t interested in a certain type of post would just ignore it. But maybe the fact I’ve posted several posts of this general type lately meant someone wanted to actively discourage me writing more posts of this type?
I think I was among the first three votes and upvoted, so there seems to have been one big downvote, or maybe a bug, because when I upvoted it didn’t have negative karma and now again it also doesn’t (with 4 votes).
Yeah, when my own automatic strong upvote is included, this has 4 votes and 3 net karma. But if I remove my strong upvote, it’s on 3 votes and −4 karma. (All posts automatically start with a strong upvote from the poster.)
I was an early voter and gave a weak upvote, so I think there is probably a single individual who strongly downvoted. I wouldn’t worry about it or take too much from it. It’s dangerous to extrapolate too much from a single individual and I think you’ll find people will quite like this post overall if you give it a bit more time.
I liked this post because I think it probably has helped me decide a few things where I was previously unsure:
I’ve been thinking about reading Rationality: From AI to Zombies but wasn’t too sure if it was worth it, but now I think I will just do it.
I’ve also been quite unsure about Human Compatible vs TheAlignment Problem but I think I may go for the latter. I am somewhat familiar with the AI arguments but certainly not “4 books familiar”.
I have The Precipice and have read some of it which I found useful, but I may now delve in again to ensure I’ve got everything of use. Also I want to have a look at what you’ve written about it (given that it has been so useful to you).
It’s dangerous to extrapolate too much from a single individual and I think you’ll find people will quite like this post overall if you give it a bit more time.
I agree with both of those points. But the reason I asked wasn’t because the strong downvote hurt my ego or something (it probably would’ve earlier in my Forum journey, but now I’ve posted a lot and gotten research jobs I’m happy with so I’m more protected from that). Rather, it was that I was just really confused as to why there was a strong downvote, so it suggested that there was something I was failing to understand, which might be important somehow.
(It’d be different if I made a post that I knew might be controversial for a particular reason, but hoped would be overall liked. Then if a downvote came in, it’d still contain new info, but I’d know what the info meant.)
(And it now turns out that the reason for the downvote was something I wouldn’t have easily guessed, and the info it turns out to have contained is interesting.)
Anyway, thanks for giving that info on ways in which this post was helpful for you—that’s good (and useful) to know!
Currently, excluding my automatic upvote, this post has 3 votes and −4 karma, if you exclude my automatic vote. I’m quite surprised by that (partly because the post doesn’t really make claims or tell people to do things, so it seems harder for it to be controversial), and I’d be very interested to hear why people/a person who downvoted it did so.
(I mean this sincerely, rather than just as a complaint or to start an argument or something.)
One hypothesis is just that I’ve posted several low-effort posts about books lately—asking for and collecting recommendations, sharing notes, and then this post—and maybe someone just doesn’t find them useful and is sick of seeing them? By default, I’d guess that someone who simply isn’t interested in a certain type of post would just ignore it. But maybe the fact I’ve posted several posts of this general type lately meant someone wanted to actively discourage me writing more posts of this type?
I think I was among the first three votes and upvoted, so there seems to have been one big downvote, or maybe a bug, because when I upvoted it didn’t have negative karma and now again it also doesn’t (with 4 votes).
Yeah, when my own automatic strong upvote is included, this has 4 votes and 3 net karma. But if I remove my strong upvote, it’s on 3 votes and −4 karma. (All posts automatically start with a strong upvote from the poster.)
I was an early voter and gave a weak upvote, so I think there is probably a single individual who strongly downvoted. I wouldn’t worry about it or take too much from it. It’s dangerous to extrapolate too much from a single individual and I think you’ll find people will quite like this post overall if you give it a bit more time.
I liked this post because I think it probably has helped me decide a few things where I was previously unsure:
I’ve been thinking about reading Rationality: From AI to Zombies but wasn’t too sure if it was worth it, but now I think I will just do it.
I’ve also been quite unsure about Human Compatible vs The Alignment Problem but I think I may go for the latter. I am somewhat familiar with the AI arguments but certainly not “4 books familiar”.
I have The Precipice and have read some of it which I found useful, but I may now delve in again to ensure I’ve got everything of use. Also I want to have a look at what you’ve written about it (given that it has been so useful to you).
I agree with both of those points. But the reason I asked wasn’t because the strong downvote hurt my ego or something (it probably would’ve earlier in my Forum journey, but now I’ve posted a lot and gotten research jobs I’m happy with so I’m more protected from that). Rather, it was that I was just really confused as to why there was a strong downvote, so it suggested that there was something I was failing to understand, which might be important somehow.
(It’d be different if I made a post that I knew might be controversial for a particular reason, but hoped would be overall liked. Then if a downvote came in, it’d still contain new info, but I’d know what the info meant.)
(And it now turns out that the reason for the downvote was something I wouldn’t have easily guessed, and the info it turns out to have contained is interesting.)
Anyway, thanks for giving that info on ways in which this post was helpful for you—that’s good (and useful) to know!