I appreciate the comment, and agree the case for venting feelings, allowing one’s own status-beliefs to be visible, etc., is worth considering separately from the case for sharing facts accurately.
I do think the quote from Szilard, above, is discussing more than facts / [things with a truth value]. And I think there’s real “virtue of having more actual contact with the world, and with other people” in sharing more of one’s thoughts/feelings/attitudes/etc. Not, as you say, “all the false and irrational things that pass through one’s head,” because all kinds of unimportant nonsense passes through my head sometimes. But I do see some real “virtue of non-consequentialist communication” value to e.g. sharing those feelings, attitudes, viewpoints, ambitions, etc that are the persistent causes of my other thoughts and actions, and to sometimes trying to convey these via direct/poetical images (“smarter than a potted plant”) rather than clinical self-description (“I seem to be annoyed”).
Main upside to doing this:
They say things I’m not expecting; I say things they’re not expecting; and we can more see through each others’ eyes. (And then e.g. they help me notice ways I’ve been being unfair, or help me figure out what it is that’s weirding me out about a particular thing, or are changed by some aspect of how I’m seeing things in a way that seems reality-contact-increasing, or etc.)
(I agree not all triggered sentences are a good idea to say, because sometimes everybody goes haywire in a useless+damaging way, and sometimes other people don’t want to have to deal with my nonsense and shouldn’t need to, and there’s a whole art to this, but I don’t think it’s an art based in asking whether communication will have good effects.)
I like this perspective. I would agree that there is more to knowing and being known by others than simply Aumann Agreement on empirical fact. I also probably have a tendency to expect more explicit goal-seeking from others than myself.
I haven’t thought this through before, but I notice two things that affect how open I am. The first is how much the communication is private, has non-verbal cues, and has an existing relationship. So right now, I’m not writing this with a desired consequence in mind, but I am filtering some things out subconsciously—like if we were in person talking right now, I might launch into a random anecdote, but while writing online I stay on a narrower path.
The second is that I generally only start running my “consequentialist program” once I anticipate that someone may be upset by what I say. The anticipation of offense is what triggers me to think either “but it still needs to be said” or “saying this won’t help”. So maybe my implicit question was less “why does Eliezer not aim all his communication at his goals” and more “why doesn’t he seem to have the same guardrail I do about only causing offense if it will help”, which is a more subjective standard.
I appreciate the comment, and agree the case for venting feelings, allowing one’s own status-beliefs to be visible, etc., is worth considering separately from the case for sharing facts accurately.
I do think the quote from Szilard, above, is discussing more than facts / [things with a truth value]. And I think there’s real “virtue of having more actual contact with the world, and with other people” in sharing more of one’s thoughts/feelings/attitudes/etc. Not, as you say, “all the false and irrational things that pass through one’s head,” because all kinds of unimportant nonsense passes through my head sometimes. But I do see some real “virtue of non-consequentialist communication” value to e.g. sharing those feelings, attitudes, viewpoints, ambitions, etc that are the persistent causes of my other thoughts and actions, and to sometimes trying to convey these via direct/poetical images (“smarter than a potted plant”) rather than clinical self-description (“I seem to be annoyed”).
Main upside to doing this:
They say things I’m not expecting; I say things they’re not expecting; and we can more see through each others’ eyes. (And then e.g. they help me notice ways I’ve been being unfair, or help me figure out what it is that’s weirding me out about a particular thing, or are changed by some aspect of how I’m seeing things in a way that seems reality-contact-increasing, or etc.)
(I agree not all triggered sentences are a good idea to say, because sometimes everybody goes haywire in a useless+damaging way, and sometimes other people don’t want to have to deal with my nonsense and shouldn’t need to, and there’s a whole art to this, but I don’t think it’s an art based in asking whether communication will have good effects.)
I like this perspective. I would agree that there is more to knowing and being known by others than simply Aumann Agreement on empirical fact. I also probably have a tendency to expect more explicit goal-seeking from others than myself.
I haven’t thought this through before, but I notice two things that affect how open I am. The first is how much the communication is private, has non-verbal cues, and has an existing relationship. So right now, I’m not writing this with a desired consequence in mind, but I am filtering some things out subconsciously—like if we were in person talking right now, I might launch into a random anecdote, but while writing online I stay on a narrower path.
The second is that I generally only start running my “consequentialist program” once I anticipate that someone may be upset by what I say. The anticipation of offense is what triggers me to think either “but it still needs to be said” or “saying this won’t help”. So maybe my implicit question was less “why does Eliezer not aim all his communication at his goals” and more “why doesn’t he seem to have the same guardrail I do about only causing offense if it will help”, which is a more subjective standard.