Like seemingly many others, I found Said a mix of “frequently incredibly annoying, seemingly blind to things that are clear to others, poorly calibrated with the confidence level he expresses things, occasionally saying obviously false things[1]” and “occasionally pointing out the-Emperor-has-no-clothes in ways that are valuable and few other people seem to do”.
(I had banned him from my personal posts, but not from my frontpaged posts.)
And I wish we could get the good without the bad. It sure seems like that should be possible. But in practice it doesn’t seem to exist much?
I have occasionally noticed in myself that I want to give some criticism; I could choose to put little effort in but then it would be adversarial in a way I dislike, or I could choose to put a bunch of effort in to make a better-by-my-lights comment, or I could just say nothing; and I say nothing.
I think this is less of a loss than I think Said thinks it is. (At least as a pattern. I don’t know if Said has much opinion about my comments in specific.) But I do think it’s a bit of a loss. I think it’s plausible that a version of me who was more willing to be disagreeable and adversarial would have left some valuable comments that in fact never got written.
(But also, it’s plausible that that version of me wrote fewer of my actually-good comments; and that some of the additional comments he wrote turned out to be crap; and that his refusal to put in effort in some cases lead to him learning less.)
So is this just, like, a personality dial? Where you only get the EHNC comments if it’s turned so far over in one direction that you also get the other stuff? Idk, doesn’t seem like that should be the case. Apart from anything else, “a version of Said who has very similar personality but is, like, less wrong about stuff” would IMO be a big improvement. (But maybe it’s harder to become less wrong with the dial set over there? Still, I dunno, doesn’t feel quite right.)
But for whatever reason, it does seem like the good thing Said was providing is rare, and I’m sad about losing it.
On net I’m pretty sure I agree with the ban. And I strongly appreciate the amount of thoughtfulness put into the decision and this post.
For honesty’s sake I should admit the example I had in mind when I wrote that was a bit less obvious than I’d remembered. Said: “X is strictly superior to Y.” Me: “no it’s not for reasons A, B.” Said: “So just do Z, come on, this problem has been solved for decades.” Me: “Still has A, and only a partial solution to B because of C.” Said: (No reply.)
It’s maybe not obvious that X is not strictly superior; and while I do think it’s obvious that Z still has problem A, Said admittedly never outright says it doesn’t… but like, still. This comment thread by itself isn’t a big deal of course, but I don’t think it’s particularly out of distribution for Said.
Like seemingly many others, I found Said a mix of “frequently incredibly annoying, seemingly blind to things that are clear to others, poorly calibrated with the confidence level he expresses things, occasionally saying obviously false things[1]” and “occasionally pointing out the-Emperor-has-no-clothes in ways that are valuable and few other people seem to do”.
(I had banned him from my personal posts, but not from my frontpaged posts.)
And I wish we could get the good without the bad. It sure seems like that should be possible. But in practice it doesn’t seem to exist much?
I have occasionally noticed in myself that I want to give some criticism; I could choose to put little effort in but then it would be adversarial in a way I dislike, or I could choose to put a bunch of effort in to make a better-by-my-lights comment, or I could just say nothing; and I say nothing.
I think this is less of a loss than I think Said thinks it is. (At least as a pattern. I don’t know if Said has much opinion about my comments in specific.) But I do think it’s a bit of a loss. I think it’s plausible that a version of me who was more willing to be disagreeable and adversarial would have left some valuable comments that in fact never got written.
(But also, it’s plausible that that version of me wrote fewer of my actually-good comments; and that some of the additional comments he wrote turned out to be crap; and that his refusal to put in effort in some cases lead to him learning less.)
So is this just, like, a personality dial? Where you only get the EHNC comments if it’s turned so far over in one direction that you also get the other stuff? Idk, doesn’t seem like that should be the case. Apart from anything else, “a version of Said who has very similar personality but is, like, less wrong about stuff” would IMO be a big improvement. (But maybe it’s harder to become less wrong with the dial set over there? Still, I dunno, doesn’t feel quite right.)
But for whatever reason, it does seem like the good thing Said was providing is rare, and I’m sad about losing it.
On net I’m pretty sure I agree with the ban. And I strongly appreciate the amount of thoughtfulness put into the decision and this post.
For honesty’s sake I should admit the example I had in mind when I wrote that was a bit less obvious than I’d remembered. Said: “X is strictly superior to Y.” Me: “no it’s not for reasons A, B.” Said: “So just do Z, come on, this problem has been solved for decades.” Me: “Still has A, and only a partial solution to B because of C.” Said: (No reply.)
It’s maybe not obvious that X is not strictly superior; and while I do think it’s obvious that Z still has problem A, Said admittedly never outright says it doesn’t… but like, still. This comment thread by itself isn’t a big deal of course, but I don’t think it’s particularly out of distribution for Said.