Oh, dear. This is terrible, and I wish you hadn’t posted it, because there’s literally no value to be had in delivering this sort of message in this sort of way. Disendorse; I claim this is evidence that most of your arguments about social capability should be somewhat discounted, since they’re coming from someone unskilled.
I honestly think this person has been engaged with enough, at least until they make the kind of concrete claims you’ve been asking for. I think it’s commendable to have responded with the good mix of “look at their plausibly good points while calling them out on their bad points”, but at some point it becomes uncommendable to engage with people who are clearly not arguing in good faith.
Our ability to concretely describe the effects of social groups on people in general are kind of limited, but things like “person X joined social group Y and now they concretely do behavior Z” are available. If you see people join a group and then become concretely worse (in your own assessment), I think it can be valuable to refer to specifics. I think it can be important and virtuous to convey what you think is a pernicious process, and unfortunately naming someone you personally know is a very effective, if cruel way to do it. Anecdata, and especially anecdata based on the content of someone’s facebook feed, is not a great snapshot of a person at different times, but it’s still a source of information.
I’m not sure what you think a better sort of way to deliver this sort of message is, but to some extent any nicer way to do it would be less effective in conveying how bad you think the situation is.
That seems true and correct to me. I note that my response to this specific comment was … motivationally entangled? … with my responses to this person’s other comments, and that I was adopting a cross-comment strategy of “try to publicly defend certain norms while engaging with everything else that doesn’t violate those norms.”
I think it’s defensible to say that, in so doing, I lost … fine-grained resolution? … on the specific thing being said above, and could’ve teased out the value that you were able to identify above separate from my defense of a) norms and b) Qiaochu.
Oh, dear. This is terrible, and I wish you hadn’t posted it, because there’s literally no value to be had in delivering this sort of message in this sort of way. Disendorse; I claim this is evidence that most of your arguments about social capability should be somewhat discounted, since they’re coming from someone unskilled.
I honestly think this person has been engaged with enough, at least until they make the kind of concrete claims you’ve been asking for. I think it’s commendable to have responded with the good mix of “look at their plausibly good points while calling them out on their bad points”, but at some point it becomes uncommendable to engage with people who are clearly not arguing in good faith.
Yeah, I’m done replying at this point. +1 for the outside view check, though—if I weren’t already done, I would’ve appreciated your intervention.
I disagree.
Fair. Care to put forth a model? You don’t have to; simply weighing in is also a contribution (just a less useful one).
Our ability to concretely describe the effects of social groups on people in general are kind of limited, but things like “person X joined social group Y and now they concretely do behavior Z” are available. If you see people join a group and then become concretely worse (in your own assessment), I think it can be valuable to refer to specifics. I think it can be important and virtuous to convey what you think is a pernicious process, and unfortunately naming someone you personally know is a very effective, if cruel way to do it. Anecdata, and especially anecdata based on the content of someone’s facebook feed, is not a great snapshot of a person at different times, but it’s still a source of information.
I’m not sure what you think a better sort of way to deliver this sort of message is, but to some extent any nicer way to do it would be less effective in conveying how bad you think the situation is.
That seems true and correct to me. I note that my response to this specific comment was … motivationally entangled? … with my responses to this person’s other comments, and that I was adopting a cross-comment strategy of “try to publicly defend certain norms while engaging with everything else that doesn’t violate those norms.”
I think it’s defensible to say that, in so doing, I lost … fine-grained resolution? … on the specific thing being said above, and could’ve teased out the value that you were able to identify above separate from my defense of a) norms and b) Qiaochu.
Thanks!