re: persuasive intent—yes, of course I want to persuade people but I’m believe I’m being very clear about the fact that some sections are just analogies.
My strongest objection to your writing style is the accusation that sleep researchers in general are doing shoddy research and culpable for the equivalent of killing people. This is the point at which I would have stopped reading your article (and lowered my likelihood of reading other things you write in the future), if it weren’t for the fact that Elizabeth was the one who curated the piece.
I believe this is a very strong misreading of what I wrote. I did write that sleep researchers in general are doing shoddy research (I’m pretty sure this is true). I never wrote that they are culpable for the equivalent of killing people.
Here’s the paragraph this is referring to, I believe:
Why are people not all over this? Why is everyone in love with charlatans who say that sleeping 5 hours a night will double your risk of cancer, make you pre-diabetic, and cause Alzheimer’s, despite studies showing that people who sleep 5 hours have the same, if not lower, mortality than those who sleep 8 hours? Convincing a million 20-year-olds to sleep an unnecessary hour a day is equivalent, in terms of their hours of wakefulness, to killing 62,500 of them.
I thought specifically about how to phrase the last sentence in order for it to be only about facts rather than accusing anyone and the “convincing a million 20-years-olds” appears clearly to be just a thought experiment to me.
appears clearly to be just a thought experiment to me.
The point isn’t what you intended to come across in your writing, but what actually does come across in your writing, and the expectations that creates in the reader about how others will perceive your writing.
By analogy, let’s say you go to a party and tell a joke making fun of my friend Sarah’s shoes. You think it’s funny and mean it as a bit of friendly teasing. I know that you’re a little nervous and are just trying to connect, and the joke honestly seems kind of funny to me.
However, I also know Sarah’s sensitive about her shoes, and that the others who heard the joke probably hear it as mean-spirited, because they don’t know you very well. Plus, the joke really did feel mean to me, even though I also found it humorous at the same time.
Because of that, I feel pressure to reprimand you, and maybe not to bring you back to another party in the future. This is partly because I want to make Sarah feel defended, but also because I’m concerned that others will think I’m mean if I don’t distance myself from you. They’ll certainly think that if I then go around telling other people the joke.
It’s this sort of reaction that the aspects of your writing I pointed out are provoking. And yes, in a real-life party situation, you could apologize and make amends, and things would probably be OK. However, on the internet, in a piece of writing, you don’t have that opportunity. It has to come off right the first time, without “help” from the comments, except in dialog with the very small number of highly-engaged LessWrongers here.
Because of the effort you’ve put into writing this up and seeking attention for your ideas, and also because I find your ideas intriguing, I’d prefer if you produced writing that avoided the perception problem I’m describing here. That way, I could more easily share this information and build on it over time. Right now, it’s a real barrier.
Incidentally, your math is wrong.
Life expectancy in the USA at age 20 is about 62 years.
24 hours/day * 365 days/year * 62 years (life expectancy at age 20) = 543,120 hours ~= 500,000 hours
If sleep scientists are convincing 1 million 20-year-olds to waste an extra hour on unnecessary and unwanted sleep every day, that could be interpreted as 2 “lives” per day.
It would take 85.6 years for sleep scientists to “waste” that much of this cohort of 1 million 20 year old’s time, all other assumptions granted. And I think you should probably address the fact that there are many more than 1 million people, while sleep scientists probably share far less than full responsibility for the sleep choices of the average person. Also, the difference between an extra hour of sleep and an extra hour of death is probably, to most people, vast.
Let’s say you take this criticism into account and wanted to word the sentence I found offensive. You might say something like:
Based on [calculation with appropriate caveats and qualifications], I estimate that the US adult population of 209 million people gets about 1 unnecessary hour of sleep per day. This amounts to about 24,000 person-years every day, or around 400 lifetimes. It adds up to almost 150,000 lifetimes every year, just in the USA. If that extra hour is “junk sleep,” as I contend, we are missing out on a huge amount of happiness in the pursuit of our pillows!
It’s not your style, and it’s a lot longer and less punchy. But it still conveys the scope of the issue, while framing it as a goal to be (perhaps) attained rather than an occasion for blame.
I leave it to you to figure out how to make use of this information.
This is along similar lines to criticism I sent to guzey before publication, albeit many times more eloquent. My criticism was dismissed similarly. The offhand dismissal of considered criticism also sounds like the discourse of people whose ideas I’m wary of. This in turn makes me wary of guzey’s ideas, which I am otherwise sympathetic towards.
I’m confused about your pushback to AllAmericanBreakfast’s (great) feedback on your style, which I find antagonistic to the point that (like AAB) I’m not comfortable sharing it with anyone, despite broadly agreeing with your conclusions and thinking it’s important.
> Convincing a million 20-year-olds to sleep an unnecessary hour a day is equivalent, in terms of their hours of wakefulness, to killing 62,500 of them.
I thought specifically about how to phrase the last sentence in order for it to be only about facts rather than accusing anyone and the “convincing a million 20-years-olds” appears clearly to be just a thought experiment to me.
For what it’s worth, I baulked at that sentence too. If you want to avoid the extra connotations, you could phrase it more like ”...will cause them collectively to forgo 62,500 lifetimes’ worth of waking hours”. (Hopefully something less clunky than that, though.)
edit: to clarify, my issue was with the comparison, not with the implied blame. Although you explicitly claim equivalence only ‘in terms of their hours of wakefulness’, to me as a reader it seems like you are doing one of two things with that sentence: either suggesting that causing a million 20-year olds to sleep an extra unnecessary hour per day is, in terms of overall badness, somewhere in the ballpark of killing 62,500 of them; or making the comparison for no good reason other than rhetorical shock value, knowing that it is technically defensible due to the qualifier (‘in terms of their hours of wakefulness’), but only because that allows you to brush over the differences between extra sleep and premature death.
re: persuasive intent—yes, of course I want to persuade people but I’m believe I’m being very clear about the fact that some sections are just analogies.
I believe this is a very strong misreading of what I wrote. I did write that sleep researchers in general are doing shoddy research (I’m pretty sure this is true). I never wrote that they are culpable for the equivalent of killing people.
Here’s the paragraph this is referring to, I believe:
I thought specifically about how to phrase the last sentence in order for it to be only about facts rather than accusing anyone and the “convincing a million 20-years-olds” appears clearly to be just a thought experiment to me.
The point isn’t what you intended to come across in your writing, but what actually does come across in your writing, and the expectations that creates in the reader about how others will perceive your writing.
By analogy, let’s say you go to a party and tell a joke making fun of my friend Sarah’s shoes. You think it’s funny and mean it as a bit of friendly teasing. I know that you’re a little nervous and are just trying to connect, and the joke honestly seems kind of funny to me.
However, I also know Sarah’s sensitive about her shoes, and that the others who heard the joke probably hear it as mean-spirited, because they don’t know you very well. Plus, the joke really did feel mean to me, even though I also found it humorous at the same time.
Because of that, I feel pressure to reprimand you, and maybe not to bring you back to another party in the future. This is partly because I want to make Sarah feel defended, but also because I’m concerned that others will think I’m mean if I don’t distance myself from you. They’ll certainly think that if I then go around telling other people the joke.
It’s this sort of reaction that the aspects of your writing I pointed out are provoking. And yes, in a real-life party situation, you could apologize and make amends, and things would probably be OK. However, on the internet, in a piece of writing, you don’t have that opportunity. It has to come off right the first time, without “help” from the comments, except in dialog with the very small number of highly-engaged LessWrongers here.
Because of the effort you’ve put into writing this up and seeking attention for your ideas, and also because I find your ideas intriguing, I’d prefer if you produced writing that avoided the perception problem I’m describing here. That way, I could more easily share this information and build on it over time. Right now, it’s a real barrier.
Incidentally, your math is wrong.
Life expectancy in the USA at age 20 is about 62 years.
24 hours/day * 365 days/year * 62 years (life expectancy at age 20) = 543,120 hours ~= 500,000 hours
If sleep scientists are convincing 1 million 20-year-olds to waste an extra hour on unnecessary and unwanted sleep every day, that could be interpreted as 2 “lives” per day.
62,500 lives / (365 days/year * 2 lives/day) = 62,500 lives / (730 lives/year) = 85.6 years.
It would take 85.6 years for sleep scientists to “waste” that much of this cohort of 1 million 20 year old’s time, all other assumptions granted. And I think you should probably address the fact that there are many more than 1 million people, while sleep scientists probably share far less than full responsibility for the sleep choices of the average person. Also, the difference between an extra hour of sleep and an extra hour of death is probably, to most people, vast.
Let’s say you take this criticism into account and wanted to word the sentence I found offensive. You might say something like:
It’s not your style, and it’s a lot longer and less punchy. But it still conveys the scope of the issue, while framing it as a goal to be (perhaps) attained rather than an occasion for blame.
I leave it to you to figure out how to make use of this information.
This is along similar lines to criticism I sent to guzey before publication, albeit many times more eloquent. My criticism was dismissed similarly. The offhand dismissal of considered criticism also sounds like the discourse of people whose ideas I’m wary of. This in turn makes me wary of guzey’s ideas, which I am otherwise sympathetic towards.
I’m confused about your pushback to AllAmericanBreakfast’s (great) feedback on your style, which I find antagonistic to the point that (like AAB) I’m not comfortable sharing it with anyone, despite broadly agreeing with your conclusions and thinking it’s important.
For what it’s worth, I baulked at that sentence too. If you want to avoid the extra connotations, you could phrase it more like ”...will cause them collectively to forgo 62,500 lifetimes’ worth of waking hours”. (Hopefully something less clunky than that, though.)
edit: to clarify, my issue was with the comparison, not with the implied blame. Although you explicitly claim equivalence only ‘in terms of their hours of wakefulness’, to me as a reader it seems like you are doing one of two things with that sentence: either suggesting that causing a million 20-year olds to sleep an extra unnecessary hour per day is, in terms of overall badness, somewhere in the ballpark of killing 62,500 of them; or making the comparison for no good reason other than rhetorical shock value, knowing that it is technically defensible due to the qualifier (‘in terms of their hours of wakefulness’), but only because that allows you to brush over the differences between extra sleep and premature death.