[Originally regarding Said Achmiz and myself ca. 2023]
I feel like you both favor a more aggressive flavor of discourse than I tend to like.
The aggressiveness is, I think, a symptom of the underlying trait, which is being disagreeable about taking people’s frames as valid
Most people, when given a weird framing of a situation which feels vaguely off but comes from someone who seems well-intentioned and cooperative, will go along with it and argue within that frame rather than contest it.
But this is very exploitable, and you don’t have to actually be consciously trying to exploit it to do so. And so people who do this a lot (e.g. Duncan, but also numerous other people I respect more, including Eliezer except when he’s explicitly being careful about it, which he usually is) can warp the whole field of discourse around them
Obviously most people who are disagreeable about this are disagreeable in general, and therefore usually aggressive about arguments and discourse. This isn’t necessary in principle but if anyone knows how to teach it I’ve never met them
I heard someone (who I respect) say why they don’t post on LessWrong more. They said when they talk about their thoughts and ideas with their friends, the friends won’t question their basic frame / sanity, and so won’t undermine their trust in themself. They said that this is acceptable on LessWrong, which is a more uncomfortable experience.
Ever since then I’ve tried a bit harder to make sure to question my friends’ basic frames and sanity, so that I’m not encouraging self-blinding in the people around me, and so they will know that they’re welcome to do the same to me.
Can you give an example of what you mean by aggressive discourse? because I think I’m bringing the baggage of assuming it refers to tone and inclusion of sarcasm, mocking the interlocutor, as well as name calling and Ad hominem arguments etc. etc.
Said had a habit of responding to posts that were reasonably well-reasoned but sparsely justified with one-word comments like “Sources?”, or very short coments along the lines of “X point is insufficeiently justified.” without any throat-clearing or praise, which is a good example of it done well.
In general, “Your premises are treated as obvious when they are actually bizarre, and your argument is therefore irrelevant.” is maybe the central example of when this is both highly confrontational but also highly necessary.
Knowing that framing is a thing makes it safe, as you can work with thoughts about the same content presented in multiple alternative framings separately, there is no tradeoff (the danger is when you are unaware that framing can have a huge influence on reasoning, and needs to be given proper attention). Refusing to entertain a framing is then not very different from refusing to consider an idea, and similarly with insisting on a particular framing, or insisting that you consider a particular idea. So treatment of boundaries in discourse seems more of a crux than framing vs. content.
[Originally regarding Said Achmiz and myself ca. 2023]
The aggressiveness is, I think, a symptom of the underlying trait, which is being disagreeable about taking people’s frames as valid
Most people, when given a weird framing of a situation which feels vaguely off but comes from someone who seems well-intentioned and cooperative, will go along with it and argue within that frame rather than contest it.
But this is very exploitable, and you don’t have to actually be consciously trying to exploit it to do so. And so people who do this a lot (e.g. Duncan, but also numerous other people I respect more, including Eliezer except when he’s explicitly being careful about it, which he usually is) can warp the whole field of discourse around them
Obviously most people who are disagreeable about this are disagreeable in general, and therefore usually aggressive about arguments and discourse. This isn’t necessary in principle but if anyone knows how to teach it I’ve never met them
I heard someone (who I respect) say why they don’t post on LessWrong more. They said when they talk about their thoughts and ideas with their friends, the friends won’t question their basic frame / sanity, and so won’t undermine their trust in themself. They said that this is acceptable on LessWrong, which is a more uncomfortable experience.
Ever since then I’ve tried a bit harder to make sure to question my friends’ basic frames and sanity, so that I’m not encouraging self-blinding in the people around me, and so they will know that they’re welcome to do the same to me.
Can you elaborate (or provide a link) on what it means to question someone’s basic frames?
Can you give an example of what you mean by aggressive discourse? because I think I’m bringing the baggage of assuming it refers to tone and inclusion of sarcasm, mocking the interlocutor, as well as name calling and Ad hominem arguments etc. etc.
Said had a habit of responding to posts that were reasonably well-reasoned but sparsely justified with one-word comments like “Sources?”, or very short coments along the lines of “X point is insufficeiently justified.” without any throat-clearing or praise, which is a good example of it done well.
In general, “Your premises are treated as obvious when they are actually bizarre, and your argument is therefore irrelevant.” is maybe the central example of when this is both highly confrontational but also highly necessary.
Knowing that framing is a thing makes it safe, as you can work with thoughts about the same content presented in multiple alternative framings separately, there is no tradeoff (the danger is when you are unaware that framing can have a huge influence on reasoning, and needs to be given proper attention). Refusing to entertain a framing is then not very different from refusing to consider an idea, and similarly with insisting on a particular framing, or insisting that you consider a particular idea. So treatment of boundaries in discourse seems more of a crux than framing vs. content.
I can’t make out anything but word salad from this comment.