It’s fine that you don’t want to read 30+ fairly long blog posts, especially if you dislike the writing style. But then, don’t try to criticize what you’re ignorant about. And no, openly admitting that you haven’t read the arguments you’re criticizing, and claiming that you feel guilty about it, doesn’t magically make it more acceptable. Or honest.
It’s hardly “dishonest” to criticize a position based on a 7,000-word summary statement while admitting you haven’t read the whole corpus! You’re playing with words to make a moralistic debating point: dishonesty involves deceit, and everyone has been informed of the basis for my opinions.
Consider the double standard involved. Yudkowsky lambasts “philosophers” and their “confusions”—their supposedly misguided concerns with the issues other philosophers have commented on to the detriment of inquiry. Has Yudkowsky read even a single book by each of the philosophers he dismisses?
In a normal forum, participants supply the arguments supposedly missed by critics who are only partially informed. Here there are vague allusions to what the Apostle Yudkowsky (prophet of the Singularity God) “answered” without any substance. An objective reader will conclude that the Prophet stands naked; the prolixity is probably intended to discourage criticism.
I think the argument you make in this comment isn’t a bad one, but the unnecessary and unwarranted “Apostle Yudkowsky (prophet of the Singularity God)” stuff amounts to indirectly insulting the people you’re talking with and, makes them far less likely to realize that you’re actually also saying something sensible. If you want to get your points across, as opposed to just enjoying a feeling of smug moral superiority while getting downvoted into oblivion, I strongly recommend leaving that stuff out.
Thanks for the advice, but my purpose—given that I’m an amoralist—isn’t to enjoy a sense of moral superiority. Rather, to test a forum toward which I’ve felt ambivalent for several years, mainly for my benefit but also for that of any objective observers.
Strong rhetoric is often necessary in an unreceptive forum because it announces that the writer considers his criticisms fundamental. If I state the criticisms neutrally, something I’ve often tried, they are received as minor—like the present post. They may even be voted up, but they have little impact. Strong language is appropriate in expressing severe criticisms.
How should a rationalist forum respond to harsh criticism? It isn’t rational to fall prey to the primate tendency to in-group thinking by neglecting to adjust for any sense of personal insult when the group leader is lambasted. Judging by reactions, the tendency to in-group thought is stronger here than in many forums that don’t claim the mantle of rationalism. This is partly because the members are more intelligent than in most other forums, and intelligence affords more adept self-deception. This is why it is particularly important for intelligent people to be rationalists but only if they honestly strive to apply rational principles to their own thinking. Instead, rationality here serves to excuse participants’ own irrationality. Participants simply accept their own tendencies to reject posts as worthless because they contain matter they find insulting. Evolutionary psychology, for instance, here serves to produce rationalizations rather than rationality. (Overcoming Bias is a still more extreme advocacy of this perversion of rationalism, although the tendency isn’t expressed in formal comment policies.)
“Karma” means nothing to me except as it affects discourse; I despise even the term, which stinks of Eastern mysticism. I’m told that the karma system of incentives, which any rationalist should understand vitally affects the character of discussion, was transplanted from reddit. How is a failure to attend to the vital mechanics of discussion and incentives rational? Laziness? How could policies so essential be accorded the back seat?
Participants, I’m told, don’t question the karma system because it works. A rationalist doesn’t think that way. He says, “If a system of incentives introduced without forethought and subject to sound criticisms (where even its name is an insult to rationality) produces the discourse that we want, then something must be wrong with what we want!” What’s wanted is the absence of any tests of ideology by fundamental dissent.
I think the argument you make in this comment isn’t a bad one, but the unnecessary and unwarranted “Apostle Yudkowsky (prophet of the Singularity God)” stuff amounts to indirectly insulting the people you’re talking with and, makes them far less likely to realize that you’re actually also saying something sensible. If you want to get your points across, as opposed to just enjoying a feeling of smug moral superiority while getting downvoted into oblivion, I strongly recommend leaving that stuff out.
Consider the double standard involved. Yudkowsky lambasts “philosophers” and their “confusions”—their supposedly misguided concerns with the issues other philosophers have commented on to the detriment of inquiry. Has Yudkowsky read even a single book by each of the philosophers he dismisses?
Some of them are simply not great writers. Hegel for example is just awful- the few coherent ideas in Hegel are more usefully described by other later writers. There’s also a strange aspect to this in that you are complaining about Eliezer not having read books while simultaneously defending your criticism of Eliezer’s metaethics positions without having read all his posts. Incidentally, if one wants to criticize Eliezer’s level of knowledge of philosophy, a better point is not so much the philosophers that he criticizes without reading, but rather his lack of knowledge of relevant philosophers that Eliezer seems unaware of, many of whom would agree with some of his points. Quine and Lakatos are the most obvious ones.
Here there are vague allusions to what the Apostle Yudkowsky (prophet of the Singularity God) “answered” without any substance. An objective reader will conclude that the Prophet stands naked; the prolixity is probably intended to discourage criticism.
I strongly suspect that your comments would be responded to more positively if they didn’t frequently end with this sort of extreme rhetoric that has more emotional content than rational dialogue. It is particularly a problem because on theLW interface, the up/down buttons are at the end of everything one has read, so what the last sentences say may have a disproportionate impact on whether people upvote or downvote and what they focus on in their replies.
Frankly, you have some valid points, but they are getting lost in the rhetoric. We know that you think that LW pattern matches to religion. Everyone gets the point. You don’t need to repeat that every single time you make a criticism.
It’s hardly “dishonest” to criticize a position based on a 7,000-word summary statement while admitting you haven’t read the whole corpus! You’re playing with words to make a moralistic debating point: dishonesty involves deceit, and everyone has been informed of the basis for my opinions.
Consider the double standard involved. Yudkowsky lambasts “philosophers” and their “confusions”—their supposedly misguided concerns with the issues other philosophers have commented on to the detriment of inquiry. Has Yudkowsky read even a single book by each of the philosophers he dismisses?
In a normal forum, participants supply the arguments supposedly missed by critics who are only partially informed. Here there are vague allusions to what the Apostle Yudkowsky (prophet of the Singularity God) “answered” without any substance. An objective reader will conclude that the Prophet stands naked; the prolixity is probably intended to discourage criticism.
I think the argument you make in this comment isn’t a bad one, but the unnecessary and unwarranted “Apostle Yudkowsky (prophet of the Singularity God)” stuff amounts to indirectly insulting the people you’re talking with and, makes them far less likely to realize that you’re actually also saying something sensible. If you want to get your points across, as opposed to just enjoying a feeling of smug moral superiority while getting downvoted into oblivion, I strongly recommend leaving that stuff out.
Thanks for the advice, but my purpose—given that I’m an amoralist—isn’t to enjoy a sense of moral superiority. Rather, to test a forum toward which I’ve felt ambivalent for several years, mainly for my benefit but also for that of any objective observers.
Strong rhetoric is often necessary in an unreceptive forum because it announces that the writer considers his criticisms fundamental. If I state the criticisms neutrally, something I’ve often tried, they are received as minor—like the present post. They may even be voted up, but they have little impact. Strong language is appropriate in expressing severe criticisms.
How should a rationalist forum respond to harsh criticism? It isn’t rational to fall prey to the primate tendency to in-group thinking by neglecting to adjust for any sense of personal insult when the group leader is lambasted. Judging by reactions, the tendency to in-group thought is stronger here than in many forums that don’t claim the mantle of rationalism. This is partly because the members are more intelligent than in most other forums, and intelligence affords more adept self-deception. This is why it is particularly important for intelligent people to be rationalists but only if they honestly strive to apply rational principles to their own thinking. Instead, rationality here serves to excuse participants’ own irrationality. Participants simply accept their own tendencies to reject posts as worthless because they contain matter they find insulting. Evolutionary psychology, for instance, here serves to produce rationalizations rather than rationality. (Overcoming Bias is a still more extreme advocacy of this perversion of rationalism, although the tendency isn’t expressed in formal comment policies.)
“Karma” means nothing to me except as it affects discourse; I despise even the term, which stinks of Eastern mysticism. I’m told that the karma system of incentives, which any rationalist should understand vitally affects the character of discussion, was transplanted from reddit. How is a failure to attend to the vital mechanics of discussion and incentives rational? Laziness? How could policies so essential be accorded the back seat?
Participants, I’m told, don’t question the karma system because it works. A rationalist doesn’t think that way. He says, “If a system of incentives introduced without forethought and subject to sound criticisms (where even its name is an insult to rationality) produces the discourse that we want, then something must be wrong with what we want!” What’s wanted is the absence of any tests of ideology by fundamental dissent.
Some of them are simply not great writers. Hegel for example is just awful- the few coherent ideas in Hegel are more usefully described by other later writers. There’s also a strange aspect to this in that you are complaining about Eliezer not having read books while simultaneously defending your criticism of Eliezer’s metaethics positions without having read all his posts. Incidentally, if one wants to criticize Eliezer’s level of knowledge of philosophy, a better point is not so much the philosophers that he criticizes without reading, but rather his lack of knowledge of relevant philosophers that Eliezer seems unaware of, many of whom would agree with some of his points. Quine and Lakatos are the most obvious ones.
I strongly suspect that your comments would be responded to more positively if they didn’t frequently end with this sort of extreme rhetoric that has more emotional content than rational dialogue. It is particularly a problem because on theLW interface, the up/down buttons are at the end of everything one has read, so what the last sentences say may have a disproportionate impact on whether people upvote or downvote and what they focus on in their replies.
Frankly, you have some valid points, but they are getting lost in the rhetoric. We know that you think that LW pattern matches to religion. Everyone gets the point. You don’t need to repeat that every single time you make a criticism.