This is meant to be the converse of /JosephNoonan/whats-an-unconventional-opinion-or
In this one, you submit popular or mainstream ideas to see if people think they are overrated. It never resolves - the idea is that people will bet YES on ideas that they agree are overrated.
A few things to note:
Just because someone submits an answer doesn't mean they think it's overrated. They may have just submitted it to see if others think it's overrated.
The intent is to see how overrated people think the ideas are, not how bad they are. So an idea that is bad but held by very few people still might not be considered overrated, and even an idea that's kind of good but overhyped could be considered overrated.
Related questions
@JosephNoonan Randomised Version events.
A niche type of Discord community.
Event communities are like places where people play small minigames and compete to win. Camp events refer to those where the participants do something in them.
Randomised Version means you don't play it, results are randomised, the games are made complicated and last for quite a bit of time, they could last for an hour.
I never really got why people liked that. You aren't even participating in any way except for signing up for it.
Though I guess it's a bit like cheering for your own personalized sports team or something like that.
Duplicate comment, sorry
@bohaska Yeah I played baby monopoly once with my toddler cousins and it was a version of the game where you have no input whatsoever — you’re forced to buy any tile you land on, and chance cards give no choices — and it was really fun and relaxing.
I crushed them and the whole time I kept catching myself thinking “it’s only natural that I’m crushing them, I’m far older and wiser, I should be playing easier on them,” etc.
In any case it was far more fun than the version of monopoly where you maybe have some input but the best moves are so obvious and the effect of chance so strong that it doesn’t really matter anyway.
@bohaska Ok, I just realized that Manifold decided to axe group pages, so you can't find the info there anymore.
It's a Discord server where people role-play as nations, invite is at https://discord.gg/zttfsGHb8W
@Logaems I don't think it's all that surprising. If you had submitted "Virtue ethics", then it would be much higher. The concept of virtue itself can be applied to almost any normative theory, although different theories will disagree on what things are virtuous. Plus, utilitarianism is still below 50%, so people don't think it's overrated.
@Logaems utilitarianism is callous, almost by definition. I don't believe any philosophy that doesn't take real human impact into account is worth its salt. qualifiables > quantifiables imo
does it serve a purpose? yes, absolutely it's decent at framing possibilities and setting a standard to beat. there's value in understanding what the quantifiable costs of actions would be, but it represents the bare minimum moral philosophy; practicing utilitarianism is equivalent to navigating your intimate relationships entirely on "technically that's a Yes" rather than true human understanding about enthusiasm-beyond-consent.
@Stralor What you're describing doesn't actually sound like utilitarianism. By definition, utilitarianism does take real human impact into account. In fact, the distinguishing factor between utilitarianism and other moral philosophies is that that's the only thing utilitarianism takes into account (well, except for impacts on animals and anything else believed to have moral status).
@JosephNoonan ah but you mean "human impact" as a number value. I mean "human impact" on an individual level.
@Stralor I think that this is the wrong way of looking at it, though. The idea seems to be that, because utilitarianism tries to put a number value on something, it doesn't care about it and treats it as just a number. But that ignores what the number is actually trying to represent. Utilitarianism does care about human impact on an individual level, for all individuals. That's what the number value is.
@JosephNoonan @Stralor on this question I recommend Richard Yetter Chappell’s wonderful ‘Value receptacles’, where he defends (I think) something like Joseph’s view.
On virtue and consequentialism I recommend Toby Ord’s recent interview on the 80,000 hours podcast. Where SBF is also discussed.
Interesting Russophobia in the bets (note that I didn’t write in ‘Putin’ or index it to the current conflict; that is not the idea). Or maybe folks think it’s just not a common idea. But come on.
@NicoDelon If it was meant to have nothing to do with the current conflict, then you intentionally phrased it in an extremely misleading way. This seems completely disingenuous to me.
@JosephNoonan I'm not saying it has nothing to do with it. The conflict is revealing of attitudes to the two countries. Why is it disingenuous? I'm wondering about general attitudes to two historical rivals, which are currently revealed in a specific conflict but date back much further.
IOW, I'm curious to see if people think that generalized attitudes to these two countries as being on the right/wrong side of moral history are properly calibrated. (I don't have a firm view, but I do think people tend to idealize Ukraine and demonize Russia slightly more than is warranted; I also tend to find uses of "good" and "evil" often inappropriate).
@NicoDelon I also find it fascinating that people seem to think categorizing whole countries as inherently "evil" or "good" is somehow consistent with free will, desert and merit being overrated.
@NicoDelon When atrocity is committed in the name of something, I do tend to consider discounting that something.
@NicoDelon What exactly are you trying to claim that your option means? You used the word "Russophobia", which implies that you think there's something discriminatory or prejudiced about saying Russia is bad. That only makes sense if you meant the option to apply to the Russian and Ukrainian people, rather than the regimes themselves. And if that's the case, it's extremely disingenuous to write the option in a way that implies otherwise, and then call people Russophobic for betting NO on it.
On the other hand, if you did mean it to refer to the current regimes in Russia and Ukraine, then claiming it's "Russophobic" to call the authoritarian regime in Russia evil is clearly disingenuous.
I also find it fascinating that people seem to think categorizing whole countries as inherently "evil" or "good" is somehow consistent with free will, desert and merit being overrated.
No one said Russia is inherently evil. Russia could in theory have a regime change that causes people to think that it's good now. In any case, I don't see how any of this is inconsistent with libertarian free will, merit, and desert being overrated.
"claiming it's "Russophobic" to call the authoritarian regime in Russia evil is clearly disingenuous"
That's a ludicrous reading of what I mean. Countries are more than either their current regime or their populations, and I think the conflict has revealed generalized, dichotomous attitudes towards countries-as-wholes.
In any case, I don't see how any of this is inconsistent with libertarian free will, merit, and desert being overrated.
You think calling something evil squares naturally with the rejection of free will, merit, and desert?
That's a ludicrous reading of what I mean. Countries are more than either their current regime or their populations, and I think the conflict has revealed generalized attitudes towards countries-as-wholes.
What exactly are you considering a "country-as-whole"? All of the negative attitudes that people currently have about Russia are towards the current regime. It seems like your just trying to define the option in a way that conflates people's attitudes towards the Russian regime with discriminatory ones towards Russian people so that you can call them Russophobic.
I do think there's something prejudicial about dismissing most things Russia-related as bad, which we've seen happen again and again since the start of the conflict.
What specific things have been dismissed that you think are prejudicial?
You think calling something evil squares naturally with the rejection of free will, merit, and desert?
It's specifically libertarian free will, not free will in general. Not sure why you aren't acknowledging that part of the option, unless you are just trying to make the position sound weaker than it actually is. I think calling something evil squares perfectly well with the rejection of all three of those things. The assumption that any of them are required for morality isn't an assumption that everyone agrees with.
@NicoDelon You unfortunately picked this fight with the words that you used in your answer submission. Evil is evil. Doing evil is doing evil. And letting evil slide because of semantic imprecision on your part is misguided at best. When the pendulum swings away from nationalism again, I'm comfortable knowing that I'll be able to sleep well at night having not forsaken the gift of our common humanity.
@JosephNoonan Here are some examples of what I have in mind. It seems you have not been following closely.
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2022/4/1/beware-of-the-resurgent-russophobia
https://themessenger.com/opinion/why-russophobia-has-become-a-moral-obligation
The list goes on
@NicoDelon Most of these are opinion pieces opposing Russophobia (and the first one, in particular, spent more time on whataboutism than actually giving examples). One is supporting it but defines it as hatred of the Russian state, not the people, although there are some statements it makes that could be considered Russophobic. But sure, there are some good examples here of people unfairly dismissing Russian culture as a result of the invasion of Ukraine. So why not submit an option that's specifically about that? "Russia = evil, Ukraine = good" can't possibly be just about people dismissing Russian culture because that wouldn't even cover the "Ukraine = good" part. The only way to make sense of the option is that it's referring to which side of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is in the right. That's why I think it's disingenuous to call people Russophobic because of their bets on it.
@JosephNoonan If you call me disingenuous one more time I’ll block you. People take dichotomous attitudes toward the relations between Russia and Ukraine, and this conflict reveals those attitudes but is not the only object of those attitudes. You seem intent on pretending people haven’t formed views of those two countries that go hand in hand and are wildly miscalibrated. I could link to puff pieces on Ukrainian culture and how the nazis in Ukraine aren’t real or whatever. If you can’t see what I’m talking about you’ve been living in a cave.
I also find it highly inappropriate for you to create markets on controversial opinions and then go on to police options and admonish users in the comments. Especially rich from someone who submits such perfectly well defined options as ‘neoliberalism’.
@NicoDelon The problem wasn't that you defined a vague option. I have no problem with the existence of that option. The problem only occurred when you decided to interpret people's bets on it in a particular way, despite the option being vague, and then called other traders Russophobic.
If you say, "I'm betting YES on this option because I think that people take an overly dichotomous view of the countries and that this opinion leads to Russophobia," then that's fine.
But if you say, "Interesting Russophobia in the bets," then I take issue. You're accusing other traders of being Russophobic when that can't be inferred from their bets.
If it was a genuine mistake, and you didn't mean to assume people's intentions or didn't realize that people were interpreting the option differently, then I'm sorry for calling you disingenuous. That was my perception based on your original comment, but maybe it was unfair of me.
@JosephNoonan Dude, it’s a play money website where people make jokes all the time. Half of the answers on this poll are jokes. Most markets are jokes. Somehow you decided that my emphatic, cheeky comment deserved to be treated like an offense. Are you going to police all exaggerating comments on the platform and call them out too? I don’t think you do because you realize this is not very serious and it may be—just maybe—that people don’t always literally mean what they say in comments. Like, maybe, just maybe I’m not actually calling specific traders actual Russophobes but just trying to tease users for their sensitivity to the issue. Like, when Mira doesn’t get stupid votes on stupid questions and calls traders haters. I don’t think she actually thinks they’re haters. And honestly, you’ve been kinda proving my point by responding like you did—the question of whether we should approach these two countries with any kind of nuance is one that most people don’t want to touch with a ten foot pole. So, no, you haven’t been charitable and frankly I’m bummed.
@NicoDelon If your intent was just to make a cheeky joke or tease the other traders, that wasn't clear based on your original comment. You can't assume that, just because other things on this website are obviously jokes, people are going to assume that a comment accusing people of Russophobia is a joke, too.
@NicoDelon Half of the answers are jokes?? To me, it looks like very few are. I may have a bad irony recognition though.
@JosephNoonan Welcome to social media!
If your intent was to make a serious market that actually reflects anything meaningful that wasn’t clear either.
Sorry for having unpopular opinions that I express awkwardly. I hate Putin and his unjust war of aggression. I think the people of Ukraine are resisting admirably. I still think people are wildly miscalibrated about the broader issues and what these countries include and represent. YMMV. That is the whole point of this market. Or so I thought.
@Logaems They’re not literal jokes. But they’re not very serious. I think many of us tend to take way too many things way too seriously. Probably an underrated attitude.