Weirdness at the wiki

Given the tone of discussions I wouldn't be surprised if there's a highly bimodal distribution of opinions on the subject --- and I'm sure there are loads of LWers who read and vote but don't comment.

By my reading of that thread, he was not leaning on his own authority but on that of an academic consensus. James Miller replied by claiming to distrust academia in general on the matter, and mentioned relevant incentives that might push them towards an incorrect conclusion. Gleb replied that "peer review is peer review". Up to that point, everyone was being reasonable.

Then VoiceOfRa jumped in, was very rude and seemed to thoroughly misunderstand what was going on. See this comment where he says:

For example, you've claimed several times that people should believe you because you are an academic historian.

But both of those links lead to comments by Gleb which link to sources!

Something like that Gleb replied to James_Miller with a somewhat ridiculous assertion along with:

Do you consider my credibility as an academic historian to be evidence?

I replied that he had greatly damaged his credibility with his assertion. At which point Gleb flipped out about ad hominem.

I did not downvote that comment, and upvoted it just now.

Why? The comment contains three points. One is completely false, the other two are nit-picky bordering on irrelevant.

I am not in charge of the wiki-- my saying that I like a particular version (and I still like that version better) is not the same thing as my approving it.

Also, "caricature of rationality" strikes me as both harsh and false. I hadn't gotten it into words before, but I'm concerned that you're not teaching rationality at all, just conveying the idea that "rationality" is an applause light. Do you have methods for checking on what you're actually teaching?

Aren't Elo's motivations obvious?

It could be you are actually asking why did anyone change the "approved" version. The answer is that there ain't no such thing as "approved" versions -- this is a wiki, open to edits. No one needs to ask for permission to change the page.

Information can be found in the talk page:

https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Talk:Intentional_Insights

And thank you @Lumifier for being reasonable.

.1. G: Please provide evidence when you make claims about me "hiding behind" the label of Tell Culture.

.2. As I stated in the post above - I explicitly talk about this action when I described you as (""hiding behind" the label of Tell Culture"):

.3. E: selectively sharing things that forward your interests.

.4. example (stated again):

.5. G: I want to note that Azathoth123, the other name for Eugene_Neir previously negatively engaged with Intentional Insights, and that my karma went from 1009 to 838 after VoiceOfRa began criticizing me several days ago.

.6. G: You presume to read my mind when you ascribe motivations to me.

.7. no, I read your words. When you say:

.8. G: Generally orient toward being open and transparent about my activities and motives.

.9. And now have responded with not being able or willing to:

.10. E: write a list to yourself of "most important things that I have to do today"

.11. G: You already acknowledged

.12. Yes, I directly quoted OscarWilde in his descriptions of "spider-in-a-human-suit", then on being notified that it was uncalled for, I modified the original post with words to a similar effect. I know exactly what I did, and what I said.

.13. You then said:

.14. G: you are not a neutral observer

.15. yes. As I said (and edited the original post);

.16. E: I agree; it was uncalled for. This war appears to be sucking me into the fray.

.17. You then said:

.18. G: Notice also I did not choose to complain about the unedited version of your post, this was something brought up by another Less Wronger below.

.19. To which I took offence (and outlined in my next post; and again) here:

.20. E: This offends me. Are you expecting a medal for it? You successfully did the neutral action. complaining about it again. not progress.

.21. G: and are interpreting my actions through a negative lens.

.22. I am laying out in this post the nature of my interpretation of everything you have said. This should clear everything up; and has been a monumental waste of time.

.23. G: try to read my previous statement through a steel man lens.

.24. This is offensive and not relevant. you are avoiding doing the thing you said you would do, ("Generally orient toward being open and transparent about my activities and motives.") by attacking my character.

.25. each point is now numbered so that I and you can quote the number in future responses and stop quoting the same words.