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I reject the characterization of my comment as a low-effort hot take. Considered in isolation, perhaps, but when seen in the context of a long conversation in which I also made a number of high-effort, sophisticated arguments in favor of my position, I don’t think it’s fair to characterize one particular comment that way. I’m extremely willing to defend my positions at length, which you can see, since you picked out a comment that was deep into a thread where I was doing so.
That's fine. If you believe that "Anyone affiliated with the Innocence Project deserves prison time" is a sophisticated, nuanced argument in favour of a certain position - it is your right to do so. I disagree and not simply with the position itself, but also with the prospects of such a comment leading to a reasoned discussion that could arrive at some interesting conclusion.
Here's a counter-example: "Executing all landlords in the world would be a good way to solve the housing crisis". It's a position that's a little juvenile and rather facile, but I am absolutely capable of writing a number of high-effort, good(ish) faith arguments for it by using utilitarian principles.
Do you think that the discussion writing something like this would lead to is going to be high level?
Look at the rest of the thread and my participation in it. Do you believe that I contributed nothing of intellectual value to it? Again, I’m not pretending that the particular comment you picked on was high-effort; however, I’m clearly quite capable of offering much higher-effort expansions of my position, which I did, in numerous parts of that same comment thread. That is the difference between me and someone who contributes nothing but low-effort swipes. If your belief is simply that no commenter, no matter how long-standing and high-quality-on-average, should ever be able to get away with posting anything low-effort, that’s fine, but it is not my position, nor does it appear to be the mods’ position.
Yes, absolutely! We see very high-effort and interesting threads branch off from arguments like that frequently here. I agree that you would also probably incite a lot of low-effort and/or uncharitable replies as well, but that doesn’t mean the post itself wouldn’t ultimately be worth it. If you genuinely do hold that belief, why not make an effortful post about it?
It very explicitly is not my belief, you misunderstood me. My point was that upvote/downvote system is bad at weeding out low-effort postings in general, because vast majority of people will not downvote a low-effort inflammatory statement that they agree with. I am with you as far as the idea that low-effort posting only becomes a serious concern when it dominates over higher-effort posting, and that is usually caused by people who pretty much exclusively post low-effort, ideologically-motivated comments.
I've done the very thing you suggested once 🫠. That's why I'm never going to be able to climbe out of a premoderation hole, lol
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