I think Duncan is being 100% sincere here, and I really don’t want to imply he has dishonest ulterior motives. But his article is explicitly pushing for some norms and some ways to interpret discourse that… I don’t see as healthy? It’s bad for the free flow of ideas to demand that people reading an article be apologetic if they ever disagree in the comments. Obviously we should have politeness norms, people shouldn’t insult the author, etc. But if the author says “I think A” and someone says “That’s like B” and the author is really upset because obviously A is completely different from B… Then I think that’s the author’s problem?
Idk, I feel conflicted about this. On some level, saying “Society has a norm that X is acceptable, and if you don’t accept X it’s your problem” can be very harmful to neurodivergent people (or just people with a different culture) who get hit way harder by X.
But on another level, norms of “You should take responsibility by default for how people will interpret what you say and do, even if that interpretation is completely decoupled from your intent, and even if what you said was the objectively correct truth” is also super harmful to a slice of the population and especially neurodivergent people.
So I don’t know what to make of this article. I upvoted it, but I really disagree with it.
But on another level, norms of “You should take responsibility by default for how people will interpret what you say and do, even if that interpretation is completely decoupled from your intent, and even if what you said was the objectively correct truth” is also super harmful to a slice of the population and especially neurodivergent people.
I mean obviously this is simply a blurry thing. If I say something very deliberately ambiguous that could mean A and B, and then claim A when someone understands B, I may be bad at communicating or even being playing a malicious motte-and-bailey. If I say something that is decidedly A but someone manages to understand B anyway, it’s on them. Obviously where precisely the lines lie depends since language isn’t an objective thing, but there are fuzzy areas we can identify.
The funniest example of this I can always think of is one guy who wrote a review of the Pixar movie Inside Out on an Italian newspaper passionately arguing that it was a horrible piece of propaganda meant to make kids accept CIA brainwashing (“little men” controlling their brains). And I’m like, I’m all for interpreting art in different ways, Death of the Author, and such, and I still think that that is plainly ridiculous and it can only come to mind if you literally are so obsessed with it that you’re unable to interpret anything without your weird lens.
to demand that people reading an article be apologetic if they ever disagree in the comments
This piece does not recommend this. That interpretation is explicitly ruled out (and pretty clearly) by the words of the piece itself. It’s not only not supported by the above, it’s directly contradicted.
So … you’ve changed the conversation from A to B, presumably unintentionally and without noticing that you did it. And I think this is “not the author’s problem.”
True, that was hyperbolic and I should have been more careful in how I worded this, sorry.
I’ll be more specific then:
For example:
“I don’t know if [author] will even see this comment, but [blah blah blah]”
“I’m not sure that I’ve actually understood your point, but what I think you’re saying is X, and my response to X is A (but if you weren’t saying X then A probably doesn’t apply).”
“Yo, please feel free to skip over this if it’s too time-consuming to be worth answering, but I was wondering…”
I think people shouldn’t usually be this apologetic when they express dissent, unless they’re very uncertain about they objections.
I think we shouldn’t encourage a norm of people being this apologetic by default. And while the post says it’s fine if people don’t follow that norm:
Again, I think it’s actually fine to not put in that extra work! I just think that, if you don’t, it’s kinda disingenuous to then be like “but you could’ve just not answered! No one would have cared!”
I still disagree. I don’t think it’s disingenuous at all. I think it’s fine to not put in the extra work, and also to not accept the author’s “expressing grumpiness about that fact” (well, depending on how exactly that grumpiness is expressed).
We shouldn’t model dissenters as imposing a “cost” if they do not follow that format. The “your questions are costly” framing in particular I especially disagree with, especially when the discussion is in the context of a public forum like LessWrong.
...shouldn’t usually be this apologetic when they express dissent... I think we shouldn’t encourage a norm of people being this apologetic by default.
Again the post does not recommend this. I am not going to respond further, because you are not actually talking to me or my post, but rather to a cardboard cutout you have superimposed over both.
(The recommendation is not to be apologetic, and it is not contingent on whether the commentary is dissenting or not. You keep leaping from conversation A to conversation B, and I am not interested in having conversation B, nor do I defend the B claims.)
I think Duncan is being 100% sincere here, and I really don’t want to imply he has dishonest ulterior motives. But his article is explicitly pushing for some norms and some ways to interpret discourse that… I don’t see as healthy? It’s bad for the free flow of ideas to demand that people reading an article be apologetic if they ever disagree in the comments. Obviously we should have politeness norms, people shouldn’t insult the author, etc. But if the author says “I think A” and someone says “That’s like B” and the author is really upset because obviously A is completely different from B… Then I think that’s the author’s problem?
Idk, I feel conflicted about this. On some level, saying “Society has a norm that X is acceptable, and if you don’t accept X it’s your problem” can be very harmful to neurodivergent people (or just people with a different culture) who get hit way harder by X.
But on another level, norms of “You should take responsibility by default for how people will interpret what you say and do, even if that interpretation is completely decoupled from your intent, and even if what you said was the objectively correct truth” is also super harmful to a slice of the population and especially neurodivergent people.
So I don’t know what to make of this article. I upvoted it, but I really disagree with it.
I mean obviously this is simply a blurry thing. If I say something very deliberately ambiguous that could mean A and B, and then claim A when someone understands B, I may be bad at communicating or even being playing a malicious motte-and-bailey. If I say something that is decidedly A but someone manages to understand B anyway, it’s on them. Obviously where precisely the lines lie depends since language isn’t an objective thing, but there are fuzzy areas we can identify.
The funniest example of this I can always think of is one guy who wrote a review of the Pixar movie Inside Out on an Italian newspaper passionately arguing that it was a horrible piece of propaganda meant to make kids accept CIA brainwashing (“little men” controlling their brains). And I’m like, I’m all for interpreting art in different ways, Death of the Author, and such, and I still think that that is plainly ridiculous and it can only come to mind if you literally are so obsessed with it that you’re unable to interpret anything without your weird lens.
This piece does not recommend this. That interpretation is explicitly ruled out (and pretty clearly) by the words of the piece itself. It’s not only not supported by the above, it’s directly contradicted.
So … you’ve changed the conversation from A to B, presumably unintentionally and without noticing that you did it. And I think this is “not the author’s problem.”
True, that was hyperbolic and I should have been more careful in how I worded this, sorry.
I’ll be more specific then:
I think people shouldn’t usually be this apologetic when they express dissent, unless they’re very uncertain about they objections.
I think we shouldn’t encourage a norm of people being this apologetic by default. And while the post says it’s fine if people don’t follow that norm:
I still disagree. I don’t think it’s disingenuous at all. I think it’s fine to not put in the extra work, and also to not accept the author’s “expressing grumpiness about that fact” (well, depending on how exactly that grumpiness is expressed).
We shouldn’t model dissenters as imposing a “cost” if they do not follow that format. The “your questions are costly” framing in particular I especially disagree with, especially when the discussion is in the context of a public forum like LessWrong.
Again the post does not recommend this. I am not going to respond further, because you are not actually talking to me or my post, but rather to a cardboard cutout you have superimposed over both.
(The recommendation is not to be apologetic, and it is not contingent on whether the commentary is dissenting or not. You keep leaping from conversation A to conversation B, and I am not interested in having conversation B, nor do I defend the B claims.)