Savant

Is there a realistic solution to this?

Parliamentary democracy. It's a very long-term play though.

Bet

How does ultrated work?

Random topics; random sides; random opponents; random voters. If you go to your profile > badges > take quiz to be able to earn voting badges you will see the rubric for UltraRated votes. It basically requires you to address all major arguments made in the debate and also has guidelines for frameworks to make sure that participants know how arguments will be evaluated.

One thing that seemed off to me about multiple criterion voting was that the point values are kind of arbitrary. Why are sources worth 2/3 of arguments, for example? And if one side used sources better but the other side used logic better or something to have better arguments, why are sources worth extra points but not the logic? If the goal of a debate is just to win on arguments, that seems simpler to me.

Granted, people could be biased when evaluating arguments. Which is why UltraRated votes have stricter standards. But the issue always seemed to me "the points for arguments need to be impartial" rather than "people also need to give points for other things which aren't the primary goal of the debate."

I'll give it a shot. I kinda figured up till now that if fast chat was the issue, our Discord would have a lot of people who weren't on the site. But maybe it will help. Now that I think about it, being able to customize it would allow me to add cool features Discord doesn't have.

Carvalho was complaining about nobody in the public square who was debating these topics in a democracy reaching this bar, which is a problem.

Maybe no one read every single one of those books, but there would likely be enough overlap between different experts who each read a few of them that you could cite said experts and get a broad enough picture. We don't really need someone to have read everything on two different topics to have someone who understands both, we just need an expert in each narrow domain with some overlap, and then others can cite them. A generalist doesn't need to be a specialist on every part of communism, just read a few specialists who each read like 25% of the total source material.

It's recursive, too, so if there are 8 primary sources, you can have 4 secondary sources who each read 2 primary sources, then 2 tertiary sources who each read two of those, and then at the top someone just need someone to read two tertiary sources. In reality there would need to be more overlap, but you get the idea.

This could always be a topic for the next survey. Also, saw that your post got 2 likes and it took me a minute to notice the irony.

I see your point, although it's kind of harmless in my opinion compared to other systems. Dislikes and sorting by likes both discourage dissent, but luckily we don't do either of those. LessWrong has dual voting systems—one for quality of the post, and another for agreement/disagreement, which is a good way to make valuable but controversial comments still get seen. Here I'm not sure that system would make a difference though since comments are sorted in chronological order.

As it stands, likes may be a popularity contest to some extent, but they give the people who care about likes the bare minimum they want in a forum while also not doing much to create a hive mind.

No matter what trump does, his core base will say hes exactly right.

Not always true. He said to take the vaccine and got boos.

Because you need to do ultrarated to get ultrarated elo

The entire book was a thought experiment.

Did you read my full comment? I called it a thought experiment.

I have. Not what I'm advocating, and even if I were, fiction isn't a data point, because that's not how thought experiments work. Just because I grant something for the sake of argument within a work of fiction doesn't mean I think reality will behave in the same way. For example, in the fat man version of the trolley problem if I am a utilitarian but don't shove the fat man, I would have to justify that. But for answering a question like "would a fat man actually stop a trolley?" the thought experiment isn't really data.

This is rarely a benefit to the child.

Sometimes other things like safety override autonomy, I just don't believe in restricting autonomy for the sake of restricting autonomy.

Do you actually have any kids?

Nope, confess I don't. But if one parent can force their kid to be a Muslim instead of a Christian and another parent can force their child to be a Christian instead of a Muslim, they can't both be right. If the government is willing to let kids be wrong about religion, then it should at least give them a choice.

I raised three, and they were self-destructive all the way through their teen years, when you are doing it it seems like a parent's primary role in caring for a child is to check their excesses and protect them from the bad choices they make, especially when they are teenagers.

That's why I keep saying I'm fine preventing kids from making destructive choices. It's the non-destructive choices I think they should be allowed to make.

It's a full-time job too, no way the government could handle it.

Saying kids are allowed to do something isn't raising them. The government has already been making reforms along these lines by preventing abuse for example, it's not like my proposals are super unique and unprecedented.

What if the child spends it on alcohol because the parent won't teach the child to delay gratification?

I'm fine with parents preventing that, I just want more strictly enforced restrictions so that if parents overrule their child, it must be for the child's benefit. So a parent can force their kid to save, but they can't dip into their kid's savings to buy cigarettes. My position is not "let kids decide everything."

at the end of the day it's a hugely expensive (in both time and money) volunteer job, and volunteers aren't exactly forthcoming relative to the level of need

I'm not saying ban those people from being parents, I'm saying restrict the degree to which they can harm their child.

Do you really think the government can do a better job than parents?

On some things, yeah. If a parent wants to abuse their child, I think it's good that the government bans that.

the government does not "legally restrict kids from practicing a particular religion because it conflicts with their parents' beliefs".

If a parent bans their kid from a certain religion, the government will enforce that ban by enforcing the parent's authority on the matter. They're not washing their hands of the conflict.

Parental authority is not inherently totalitarian, it can become "authoritarian", but totalitarian really only applies to government. Again, there are certainly bad parents out there, but in general, parents are going to be better than government at raising responsible, well-adjusted kids in a safe and supportive manner.

That's why I only want the government stepping in in certain cases, and never to take authority for themselves, just to give autonomy to the child.

I think shifting the responsibility for children's well-being from parents to the government is a terrible idea.

The government is already controlling what kids do and don't do, but it's doing so via parents. And the parents are the ones voting for the government as well. At the end of the day, adults are controlling what kids do, I'm just saying they should control slightly less.

Our government has already encroached on our personal lives way too much

I don't think the government should tell kids what to do, I just don't think the government should legally restrict kids from practicing a particular religion because it conflicts with their parents' beliefs. Maybe this will be unpopular, maybe it will require an amendment, but I think it's preferable to the current system, even if it's unlikely.

the government's appetite for totalitarian control

If the government gives kids the right to do [x], that's reducing the total amount of totalitarian control. Totalitarianism can come from parents—I mean, you don't trust the government, and it's the parents voting for that government, no? Abusive parents exist, just because the control isn't directly coming from the government doesn't mean it can't be totalitarian.

The idea behind age restrictions (I think) is that they protect kids. It makes sense why we don't let kids become firefighters or join the army, and parents can stop their kids from blowing all their money right away. But then what about age restrictions that don't protect kids?

Medical Restrictions

Parents are generally allowed to restrict their kids from getting vaccines, even the ones that have been tested the most thoroughly. In which case, it's often illegal for the kid to get the vaccine on their own. This is effectively just the government (through the parent) preventing the child from getting a vaccine. I think there's a lot of cases where that's clearly harming kids instead of protecting them.

Religion

A Muslim parent whose child wants to be an Orthodox Jew can force their child to attend Muslim services but ban them from Jewish ones. An Orthodox Jewish parent can force their child to attend Jewish services but ban them from Muslim ones. If one parent is forcing their child to act more rationally, then clearly the other parent is forcing their child to act less rationally. If the government has a problem with kids picking irrational religions then it can just mandate a state religion and decide on what's the most rational; if the government has no idea what's the most rational, then let kids pick religions even if it's a ridiculous one.

Money

Under common law, a parent can take money that their child earned and then go spend it on alcohol. I think it's pretty obvious how that is not protecting the child.

Voting (maybe)

I think the logic behind this is that parents represent the interests of their kids already. But if that's the case, then the kids will likely just vote the same as their parents, and the family should have more votes since it is representing the interests of more people. In cases where adults don't represent their kids' interests, like abusive parents, then the kids are getting no representation right now and that's a problem. Letting minors above like 14 vote might be a necessary evil that fixes it. Kids can be coerced, but isn't the current system, where only adults vote, effectively adults coercing children?

Kids are also less intelligent than adults, but the goal of voting isn't to see what smart people think, it's to represent everyone's interests. We don't test adults for voting, measure their IQ, or even restrict most mentally challenged adults from voting. Maybe those tests would have unintended side effects, but based on my list so far, can we honestly say that restricting kids from having representation isn't having negative side effects?

I could be swayed either way on this, though; I think the risk might be that a small subset of adults (like teachers) may have disproportionate power if kids are allowed to vote.

Solution?

I think there's a wide variety of cases where the government should grant children somewhat more autonomy. This wouldn't be the government forcing the child to do something, just preventing their parent from making the choice for the child. There are a lot of risks from standard voting for kids, but there are also significant risks from kids having zero representation, and I'm not sure what the best way to solve that is.

If you wanna make a post offering items to people who provide votes (especially on UltraRated), go ahead. We might need it.

So to be on top of leaderboard, you must not only win a lot, but also vote a lot, to be on top of leaderboard.

That's already true for UltraRated, because you need vote badges to do debates.

Well, voting on UltraRated debates allows you to do UltraRated debates, which have 3 guaranteed high-quality votes each.

Voting expectations can be clarified in the forums. Tests to be granted such privileges are unnecessary and already diminish voting quantity.

Votes not according to established standards & criteria can be removed, until quality is up to par.

People hate vote removals already. I'd argue that does more to discourage voting than a test that only applies to one specific kind of debate. And again, none of this is limiting standard and rated debates. DART didn't even have more than those two kinds, and we no longer have requirements on rated debates, so we are arguably more accessible than DART in this regard.

Compared to the DART average, the number gap of debates is wide.

That's due to it being a new community, not the voting standards. People aren't failing to do rated debates because it's hard to do UltraRated debates, many don't even know UltraRated exists.

We have the Ultra-Rated tournaments as the new source of ranking, which in of itself in a system of self-sabotage for generating traffic. Only a certain number of people can join at a time, so inclusivity is a problem for competitors.

We can't even get enough people to fill tournaments. The tournaments were because no one was doing UltraRated debates.

Tournament outcomes take too long, and there are very little to no updates. And the requirement for entering each round serves as a deterrent for participation at all.

This is because people rarely vote. We could have dozens of debates and fewer votes or lower quality votes, which is what we have for casual and rated debates. But since we already have that, why do we need it for UltraRated?

It is the incentive for participation. DART had the ultimate elo rating system (pre-2023 update), and this was when site activity was peaking. There were consistent debates, and debating was actually fun.

I mean we have this for rated and casual debates. This was the default elo for months, and switching UltraRated to be the default hasn't resulted in fewer casual and rated debates. You can still see rated elo.

To your other question; whether they would accept a redefinition of the terms as you described depends on the intent. If it’s to maintain simplicity while being more inclusive then yes, if it’s a way of disregarding that these people exist, then no.

I think there are a good chunk of people who have expressed they use the terms "man" and "women" to refer to sex in common parlance for simplicity while not denying that gender or internal sense of identity exists. So far as I can tell, that is still considered misgendering.

Why would it be a problem?

Because the community voted that it was one. I think if the community wanted to ban spam bots, that would be reasonable, and it's reasonable for the community to vote on where the line is drawn.

It's not a question of knowing everything, but of knowing as far from nothing as possible.

So it's a sliding scale and you become more authoritative over time. I disagree with the extreme you started with, which was "meet this maximally high bar before you can speak authoritatively at all."

As an example, they have learned that Chardonnay is oaky, rich and heavy. This is a pedagogical lie. Many of Chardonnays are not - depending on slope exposure, latitude, altitude, climate, and élevage, the style can be rapier-thin, fresh, and highly acidic or dense, stony and closed in its youth, and many iterations in between.

So the problem wasn't not studying for years, it was being taught something technically false. I don't think you need multiple years to get a thorough understanding of wine. Like...you just corrected that misconception in a sentence.

When it comes time for the trial to interface with reality, with the material world, a good lawyer does not do that. He brings in an expert to testify, because he recognizes the very fact that I pointed out - that sparring over the surface-level interpretations of very complex subject matter is not illuminating to anyone, and that to bring good information into the courtroom you need an interpreter of sorts who had put a lot of time and energy into discovering as much about the field in question as possible.

Well, in a debate, both sides will be citing sources from experts. I think you could learn as much from a few decent debates as a jury could learn from a trial.

Everyone argues like a defense attorney, deploying arguments like moves in choreographed dance, engaging in intellectual dressage.

And yet paying lawyers to argue is the most reliable system anyone has come up with to judge guilt vs. innocence.

Communism is a movement spanning multiple countries and generations, which has existed in countless iterations.

Sure but I can make authoritative statements about something without knowing everything about it. A few statistics about wealth or something in communist countries would be enough to speak authoritatively about whatever those statistics are measuring. Also if there's something pretty much every expert agrees on from either side, then you can say that pretty authoritatively.

I'm not sure if according to Olavo we can reliably know about anything. Yet humanity still makes progress on complex topics. Maybe the bar for authoritative is just extremely high, but then it's probably too high to be useful.

For someone to speak authoritatively about the communist movement, they must first have studied the following things

I disagree with this premise. Watching a few modern debates on communism with decent debaters on both sides should be decent enough to get a broad overview of the relevant facts. Or reading a few credible secondary and tertiary sources.

I think human plus AI does a lot more than just human.

Yeah. It also does a lot more than just AI. AI can't do every human task on the planet, so we still need humans to get a lot of things done.

they ban debby, it doesnt fix the problem (obviously).

It fixes the problem of Debby posting AI spam. That's the only problem we were trying to solve.

My point is that humans can collaboratively do a lot more than AI can do on its own, even if AI outperforms humans on narrow tasks.