How nice! It sounds like things haven’t changed too much since I got my MS.
I don’t recall my having said or indicated that. Nor do I believe that. I’m trying to explore the idea of building in that collegiate working-together-to-make-things-better thing using software to promote that sort of community. Is this the wrong thread?
Seriously, if you want to pretend I am blaming you for things I am not blaming you for, or if you want to pretend I am a climate science denier or vaccine refuse-nik, please suit yourself and leave me out of it. I don’t have time for that shit, and as you say, you don’t have to be polite.
Downvoting to express that “you got it wrong” seems appropriate when the “it” in question is in clear defiance of a known physical law, like gravity, or an enormous body of research, like vaccine safety or climate science.
But a lot of times there are various ways to approach a problem or prove a theorem. For example, one of my friends prefers closed form solutions and I like computer intensive solutions. (Please note that if we use two different methods to prove or disprove a thing, we have supported each other’s research. yay cooperation and helpfulness!) Similarly there are lots of wrong ways, but also many right ways, to design an experiment. Or code a solution.
Downvoting something stupidly dangerous like “I can jump out this 20th story window and fly!” seems the very least we can humanely do. Downvoting something that violates an accepted standard practice may be a necessary and appropriate thing to do. Downvoting an approach to a problem simply because someone else has a different approach may be the competitive thing to do, but ultimately may be less helpful.
If we are evolving a solution to a complex math or engineering problem, there likely are many approaches. Maybe some approaches are more appropriate to certain situations, but others will invariably come down to a matter of personal taste.
According to recent research on the topic, systems of data, fact, and science are just as susceptible as systems of opinion. “antagonistic memes transform affect and cultural cognition from consensus-generating, truth-convergent influences on information processing into conflictual, identity-protective ones.” Even when the topic was the Zika virus! not opinion!
How can we use this research to reduce conflictual, identity-protecting influences on information processing? How can we promote consensus-generating, truth-convergent information processing? Surely that would be better for the community!
Kahan, Dan M. and Jamieson, Kathleen Hall and Landrum, Asheley R and Winneg, Kenneth, Culturally Antagonistic Memes and the Zika Virus: An Experimental Test (July 18, 2016). Journal of Risk Research, Forthcoming; Yale Law & Economics Research Paper No. 554; Annenberg Public Policy Center/Cultural Cognition Project Working Paper No. 3. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2811294
