This is an unhelpful comment and did not contribute to the conversation.
I disagree. It is a very appropriate response to Eliezer’s flip dismissal of Goetz’s quite sincere (and to my mind, good) suggestions.
Eliezer is, of course, very well-read for a man of his age, but he is actually a bit parochial given the breadth of his ambitions and the authoritative, didactic writing style. His credibility, his communication ability, his fundraising, and even his ideas could probably benefit if he made a conscious effort to make his writing a bit more scholarly.
I understand that Eliezer is both very busy and very prolific, but I thought that his excuse (that he cited himself so much only for reasons of convenience (or laziness)) was much too dismissive of Phil’s arguments—in large part because I think his excuse is quite likely the truth.
With only a sentence and without back and forth conversation do you have the ability to pull out flippant intent from:
I link to myself because I know what I have written.
I do not know EY so I can not assign myself a high probability of doing so. In truth I subconsciously assigned a high probability that Nominull was in the same boat as me, in other words I jumped to conclusions. Do you assign yourself a high probability of determining EY’s intent from the above? If so please share if you can.
I can imagine EY’s statement made with helpful intent(I could have made that statement with helpful intent), responding to it as if it was made with unhelpful intent with out evidence does not seem rational/helpful to me.
I think you are attaching too much importance to inferring the intent (flippant vs helpful) of Eliezer’s one-line response to several dozen lines of discussion, and attaching too little importance to assessing the tone. In any case, the dictionary definition of flippant:
frivolously disrespectful, shallow, or lacking in seriousness; characterized by levity
seems to be about tone, rather than intent. Eliezer’s comment qualifies as flippant. Nominull’s response was also flippant by this definition. This matching tone strikes me as appropriate—which is exactly what I said.
At the point where Eliezer made his comment, he was being mildly criticized. His flippant comment, which I think was exactly truthful, carried the subtext that he was not particularly interested in discussing those criticisms at that time. He is totally within his rights sending that message. The criticism was mild, and formulating a serious and thoughtful response to the criticism is not something he was required to do. He could have just ignored it. He chose not to.
Sometimes clever, conversation-stopping responses don’t stop conversations. Particularly when they are a little bit rude. Eliezer got a clever and rude response back. And for almost two years, everyone was satisfied with that ending.
Eliezer got a clever and rude response back. And for almost two years, everyone was satisfied with that ending.
I think there is a high probability that lack of further comments is just due to the propensity not to post in old conversations.
I figured if the sequences and in post links are to be taken seriously then the comments should be too. Old comments should not be treated as if they were perserved in carbonite but living arguments.
You can replace intent with tone and I would stand by that point. I could make the same remark without disrespectful, shallow, lacking seriousness, and with out levity.
Sometimes clever, conversation-stopping responses don’t stop conversations. Particularly when they are a little bit rude. Eliezer got a clever and rude response back.
By your description Eliezer makes a true but rude remark and receives a rude response back and this is “appropriate.” I do not see how a rude response to what is believed to be a rude comment is productive, it does not bring any logic or new data to the table.
I disagree. It is a very appropriate response to Eliezer’s flip dismissal of Goetz’s quite sincere (and to my mind, good) suggestions.
Eliezer is, of course, very well-read for a man of his age, but he is actually a bit parochial given the breadth of his ambitions and the authoritative, didactic writing style. His credibility, his communication ability, his fundraising, and even his ideas could probably benefit if he made a conscious effort to make his writing a bit more scholarly.
I understand that Eliezer is both very busy and very prolific, but I thought that his excuse (that he cited himself so much only for reasons of convenience (or laziness)) was much too dismissive of Phil’s arguments—in large part because I think his excuse is quite likely the truth.
With only a sentence and without back and forth conversation do you have the ability to pull out flippant intent from:
I do not know EY so I can not assign myself a high probability of doing so. In truth I subconsciously assigned a high probability that Nominull was in the same boat as me, in other words I jumped to conclusions. Do you assign yourself a high probability of determining EY’s intent from the above? If so please share if you can.
I can imagine EY’s statement made with helpful intent(I could have made that statement with helpful intent), responding to it as if it was made with unhelpful intent with out evidence does not seem rational/helpful to me.
I think you are attaching too much importance to inferring the intent (flippant vs helpful) of Eliezer’s one-line response to several dozen lines of discussion, and attaching too little importance to assessing the tone. In any case, the dictionary definition of flippant:
seems to be about tone, rather than intent. Eliezer’s comment qualifies as flippant. Nominull’s response was also flippant by this definition. This matching tone strikes me as appropriate—which is exactly what I said.
At the point where Eliezer made his comment, he was being mildly criticized. His flippant comment, which I think was exactly truthful, carried the subtext that he was not particularly interested in discussing those criticisms at that time. He is totally within his rights sending that message. The criticism was mild, and formulating a serious and thoughtful response to the criticism is not something he was required to do. He could have just ignored it. He chose not to.
Sometimes clever, conversation-stopping responses don’t stop conversations. Particularly when they are a little bit rude. Eliezer got a clever and rude response back. And for almost two years, everyone was satisfied with that ending.
I think there is a high probability that lack of further comments is just due to the propensity not to post in old conversations.
I figured if the sequences and in post links are to be taken seriously then the comments should be too. Old comments should not be treated as if they were perserved in carbonite but living arguments.
You can replace intent with tone and I would stand by that point. I could make the same remark without disrespectful, shallow, lacking seriousness, and with out levity.
By your description Eliezer makes a true but rude remark and receives a rude response back and this is “appropriate.” I do not see how a rude response to what is believed to be a rude comment is productive, it does not bring any logic or new data to the table.
This example did.
Are you replying to this?