Assuming for the moment that I’ve given a roughly correct and at-least-kinda-coherent account of what Duncan meant by “aiming for convergence on the truth”, it seems to me that there are two entirely separate questions here.
Question 1: Is “aiming for convergence on the truth” a good way to describe it?
Question 2: Is it a good thing to aim for?
It seems to me that most of what you are saying is about question 1, and that question 2 matters much more. I have limited appetite for lengthy argument about question 1, especially as I have already said that the phrase Duncan used is probably not a great description for what I think he meant.
Well… this is somewhat disheartening. It seems that we are quite far from mutual understanding, despite efforts, because I would characterize the discussion thus far in almost entirely the opposite way. It seems to me that you haven’t given anything like a coherent account of what Duncan meant by “aiming for convergence on truth”; and I would say that most of what I’ve said has been abou what is and isn’t good to aim for, and only peripherally have I commented on what terminology is appropriate.
I don’t have any particular expectation for which of those activities gets the participants individually closer to the truth.
But then there is no particular reason to prefer the cooperative variant! Why would we ever want to converge with each other, if not because we believe that this will result in us both being closer to truth than if we had converged less? There isn’t any other motivation (except those which are decidedly not motivated by a desire to find the truth!).
I think that in most contexts[1] it shouldn’t be a goal.
Just so…
But it may be a consequence of seeking truth collaboratively, and that fact is one reason why I think it’s not crazy to describe seeking truth collaboratively as “aiming to converge on the truth”.
I disagree entirely. If something isn’t and also shouldn’t be a goal, then we shouldn’t say that we’re aiming for it. I mean, this really doesn’t seem complicated to me.
I don’t agree with your analysis of the climate-change example. The approach I argue for is not aiming only for truth about the other person’s beliefs, it’s aiming for truth about the object-level question too …
If you think that talking with intelligent climate change skeptics is a more effective way to get closer to the truth (in expectation) than perusing IPCC reports (a reasonable enough belief, certainly), then yes, if you do that, then you are “aiming for truth” (on the object level). If you don’t think that, and are talking with the skeptic only to gain understanding of what you believe to be a mistaken worldview, then of course you’re not “aiming for truth” (on the object level).
In both cases, convergence (on the object level) is a completely irrelevant red herring.
at least one important component of what-I-think-Duncan meant, namely “trying to work together to find the truth, as opposed to e.g. fighting one another about what it is or each aiming for truth independently”, has completely disappeared in your summary of the components of “aiming for convergence on the truth”
I do not agree. Quite simply, a comment like this oneis “working together to find the truth”, and anyone who does not think so, but instead perceives it as some sort of attack, is precisely the problem.
(By the way, here is what it looks like when someone asks “what are some examples” and you don’t treat it as an attack, but instead as a way to clarify and elaborate on your claims. There is your “working together to find the truth”!)
And by extension, anything which is described by “working together to find the truth”, but which isn’t already included in “aiming for truth” as I understand it, goes in the Bad category.
I regret your disheartenment. I’m not sure what to do about it, though, so I shall just bear in mind that apparently at least one of us is having trouble understanding at least some of what the other writes and proceed.
Why would we ever want to converge with each other, if not because we believe that this will result in us both being closer to truth than if we had converged less?
As I said in the comment you were replying to, usually convergence-as-such should not be a goal. (I did also give an example of an important class of situations in which it reasonably might be.)
However, I want to register my not-total-agreement with an assumption I think you are making, namely that the only creditable motivation is “a desire to find the truth”. We all have many goals, and finding the truth on any particular issue is never going to be the only one, and there is nothing wrong or disreputable or foolish about doing something for reasons that are not all about optimizing truth-finding on the particular issue at hand.
Again, I don’t think that “end up with my opinion and so-and-so’s opinion closer together” is generally a worthwhile goal. But other related things may be even if optimizing truth-finding is the top-level goal. “Make this place where we try to find the truth together a pleasant place so that more truth-finding can happen here”. “Come to understand one another’s positions better, so that in future discussions our attempts at truth-finding aren’t obstructed by misunderstandings”. “Make it clear that I respect So-and-so, so that it’s less likely that he or others misinterpret something I say as a personal attack”. And other related things may be worthwhile goals although they have little impact on truth-finding efficacy as such. “Have an enjoyable discussion” and “Help the other person have an enjoyable discussion”, for instance. (One reason why people engage in discussion at all, when seeking the truth, rather than spending the time in solitary reading, thinking, etc., is that they enjoy discussion.)
If something isn’t and also shouldn’t be a goal, then we shouldn’t say that we’re aiming for it.
I feel I’ve almost said everything I usefully can on this terminological question, but maybe it’s worth trying the following alternative tack. Since on the whole A and B tend to converge when they both approach the truth, and since this is especially true when the way they approach the truth is by discussing the issue in a manner intended to be mutually helpful, “approaching the truth” and “converging on truth” are both descriptions of the thing they are trying to achieve. Picking “converging on truth” over “approaching the truth” does not have to mean that you advocate pursuing (1) truth and (2) convergence as separate things. It can mean, and I think Duncan did mean, that you advocate pursuing truth, and the particular ways you have in mind for doing so are ones that tend to produce convergence.
Apparently you disagree. Fine. I have already said several times that I don’t think Duncan’s wording was optimal, after all. Something like “Aim to seek the truth together” or “Aim to seek the truth cooperatively” or “Aim to help one another arrive at the truth” would, I think, have expressed much the same idea; of course you might still object to those goals, but we’d at least be arguing about the goals rather than about the words. Still, I think Duncan’s wording is a reasonable way of gesturing at the general idea of working together, seeking mutual understanding, hoping to end up both arriving at the truth (as opposed to e.g. hoping to end up arriving at the truth oneself and rather looking forward to the other guy not getting there so one can prove one’s superiority), and generally trying to treat one another more as teammates than as bitter rivals; maybe you don’t; I am not sure that there is any value in further argument about the words as opposed to the ideas.
If you think that talking with intelligent climate skeptics is a more effective way to get closer to the truth (in expectation) than perusing IPCC reports [...]
I don’t think it is necessary to think that in order for talking with an intelligent climate skeptic to be useful and to be reasonably described as “aiming for truth”. It isn’t the case that only doing the single most truth-productive thing available to you is “aiming for truth”.
Suppose (this is, after all, the situation I was proposing) you are already talking with an intelligent climate skeptic. Then maybe it’s true that (1) in expectation you think you will learn more for a given expenditure of time and effort by reading IPCC reports, but (2) you none the less expect to learn things by talking with the skeptic and (3) you also expect to help the skeptic learn things at the same time, and (4) since you’re already having a discussion it would be rude and annoying to just drop it and say “sorry, I have decided my time would be better spent reading IPCC reports”. I submit that despite (1), (2) justifies saying that the discussion is “aiming for truth” and (3) and (4) are reasons for having that discussion (and for trying to make it a constructive discussion where you try to work together, rather than just dumping quotations from IPCC reports on the skeptic).
a comment like this one is “working together to find the truth” [...] here is what it looks like when someone asks “what are some examples” and you don’t treat it as an attack
I think you are replying not to me but to some imagined version of me that is claiming it’s always wrong to ask people for examples, even though in the comment you are replying to I said the exact opposite of that.
anything which is described by “working together to find the truth”, but which isn’t already included in “aiming for truth” as I understand it, goes in the Bad category.
So, first of all, you’re contradicting yourself, because previously you were putting “aiming to understand one another” not in the Bad category but in the Irrelevant category, and affirming that working towards mutual understanding is a valuable thing even though you would prefer not to describe it as “aiming for convergence on the truth”.
But, aside from that, the difference between “aiming for truth” and “aiming for convergence on the truth”, as I have been conjecturing Duncan meant the term, is not about doing things other than aiming for truth, it’s about selecting particular ways of aiming for truth. (On the grounds 1. that they are ways of aiming for truth, and 2. that they make the place more pleasant for everyone, which 2a. is valuable in itself and 2b. encourages people to engage in discussion here, and 3. that they help not only you but the other party arrive at the truth, which again is valuable in itself, and 4. that they make future discussions more likely to be productive, etc.)
But it’s also not at all “working together” to find truth. At best, it’s offering the other person a modicum of encouragement, and giving them a smidge of a reason to focus their attention here rather than in any of the other places they might have been considering putting extra words—promoting a particular opportunity to attention.
That’s not valueless, but it’s small. 100% of the subsequent actual work was done by ryan_b, who put forth substantial effort in a 300+ word comment, to which Said then replied:
Thanks, but I meant actual, real-world examples, of each of the claims / points / sections—not, like, fictional / imagined ones. (Preferably, multiple examples per point / claim / section.)
… which is more of the “I’ll sit over here in the shade while you connect every dot for me” mentality that I personally find quite tiresome. I didn’t realize that, along with imperious calls for the intellectual and interpretive labor of others (with nothing whatsoever offered in exchange, such as e.g. one’s own bits of possibly-relevant information), there was also a mental story aggrandizing those calls as “working together with [the person doing all the work] to find truth.”
At best, it’s offering the other person a modicum of encouragement, and giving them a smidge of a reason to focus their attention here rather than in any of the other places they might have been considering putting extra words—promoting a particular opportunity to attention.
That’s not valueless, but it’s small.
You undervalue this greatly, I think. Attention is perhaps the greatest commodity, and correctly identifying where to focus efforts is of tremendous value.
Writing a deluge of text is worth little. Concisely saying exactly what needs to be said, and no more, is the goal.
100% of the subsequent actual work was done by ryan_b, who put forth substantial effort in a 300+ word comment
Effort spent on the wrong thing is worse than useless.
… which is more of the “I’ll sit over here in the shade while you connect every dot for me” mentality that I personally find quite tiresome.
Of these options:
The dots remain un-connected and, indeed, not even drawn in the first place.
Dots are drawn by commeters, connecting them left to authors or other commenters. (There is no law, after all, that only the OP may “connect the dots” drawn by a commenter.)
Which do you choose?
And it is no good, please note, to protest that there is a third option of some commenter drawing and connecting the dots himself. For one thing, the results tend to be worse than the author doing it… but, more importantly, empirically this simply doesn’t happen. It’s one of those “fabricated options”.
So: you object to #2. #3 is unavailable. That leaves #1.
And that is precisely what we see, in many cases, where no one steps up and says “hey, what are some examples”, or asks some similar should-be-obvious question.
You are, of course, free to huff and get offended, and refuse to do the “intellectual and interpretive labor” of doing something so unreasonable as to provide examples of your claims (not even unprompted, but in response to a comment). Nobody’s forcing you to do anything but ignore such comments.
But who really loses, then? Is it the asker? Or is it you, and everyone in your audience?
What does it matter that the one who asks for examples offers you no “bits of possibly-relevant information” in exchange? Does that have the slightest bearing on whether having examples is necessary in order for the claims to be meaningful or useful?
Why is it even an “exchange” in the first place? If you make some claim, and I ask for examples, and you provide them, have you done something for me (and only for me)? Have you gained nothing from the exercise? Have all your other readers gained nothing?
Truly, I find your attitude toward such things baffling. It has always seemed to me that criticism—especially concise, well-directed criticism—is a gift, and a public service. Both when giving and when receiving it, I view criticism as a selfless contribution made to the commons, and a cooperative act—a way of helping both the author or creator of a work-in-progress (as most works of any value tend to be), and any other members of a collaborative community, to perfect it, together—building on one another’s commentary (critical and otherwise), responding to one another, contributing both generative and selective effort. Criticism cannot be the whole of that process, but it is an inseparable and necessary part of it.
Your transactional view, in contrast, really strikes me as quite strange. I cannot understand it. It seems to me quite clearly to be a worse way of doing things. Are you really quite sure that you want to reject all cooperation, all contributions, that do not conform to such transactional forms?
Some of these could be briefer, of course; though I can’t entirely begrudge their authors the reluctance to put in the effort to make their comments more concise. Still, it does seem to me that, on the whole, my own comment history is not too dissimilar from the above-linked set of comments made on one of my own posts. (And these are just the most useful ones!)
Do you disagree? Do you think that some or all of these comments are worthless, bad, harmful? (I assure you, I—the author of the post to which those commenters were responding—do not see them thus!) Or do you think that they bear no resemblance at all to my own commenting style? (That, too, seems like a dubious claim!)
Thanks, but I meant actual, written-by-you examples, that meet the criteria of being concise and well-directed criticism—not, like, ones written by other people. (Preferably, multiple examples that show you putting forth at least half of the effort required to bridge the inferential gap between you and the author as opposed to expecting them to connect all the dots themselves.)
(This comment is a mirroring of/reference to a specific Said comment, meant to highlight certain properties of how Said engages with people.)
Well, if you insist, I’ll be glad to provide such examples; I was mostly trying to give a helpful additional perspective on the matter, while also avoiding “tooting my own horn”.
However, I do want to object to this part:
(Preferably, multiple examples that show you putting forth at least half of the effort required to bridge the inferential gap between you and the author as opposed to expecting them to connect all the dots themselves.)
My earlier comment said:
It has always seemed to me that criticism—especially concise, well-directed criticism—is a gift, and a public service.
You are asking for examples of “concise, well-directed criticism”; fair enough. But what has this business about “putting forth at least half of the effort”, etc., got to do with anything? I certainly don’t agree with the implication that good and useful criticism (whether concise or not) must necessarily show the criticizer putting forth any specific amount of effort. (As I’ve said many times, effort, as such, is of no value.)
Furthermore, you have mentioned the “inferential gap” several times, and suggested that it is the criticizer’s job, at least in part, to bridge it. I disagree.
For one thing, the “inferential gap” framing suggests a scenario where Alice writes something which is true and correct, and Bob doesn’t understand it. But surely this isn’t to be taken for granted? Couldn’t Alice be wrong? Couldn’t what she’s written be nonsense? Couldn’t Alice be, as you put it, “full of shit to begin with”? (Many people are, you know!)
And it quite mystifies me why you would suggest that it’s the job of interlocutors to bridge any such purported gap. Of course it’s not! A commenter who has read some post and honestly finds that its truth is not evident, or its meaning unclear, and asks the author for explanations, clarifications, examples, etc., owes the author no “half of the effort to bridge the inferential gap”. That’s the author’s job. Fair consideration, honest communication, an open but critical mind, basic courtesy—these things are owed. But doing the author’s job for them? Certainly not.
With that said, here are some examples of comments, written by me, containing criticism which is inarguably concise and arguably well-directed (at least, I judge it to be so):
(I have more examples of what I’d consider well-directed criticism; but when it comes to brevity, I’m afraid I can’t do any better than the above-linked comments… well, as they say: growth mindset!)
I’m sorry, how do any of those (except possibly 4) satisfy any reasonable definition of the word “criticism?” And as for “well-directed”, how does a blanket “Examples?”, absent any guidance about what kind, qualify? Literally the property that these examples specifically and conspicuously lack is “direction.”
(This comment is a mirroring of/reference to Said’s commenting style, meant to highlight certain properties of how Said engages with people.)
I’m sorry, how do any of those (except possibly 4) satisfy any reasonable definition of the word “criticism?”
Well, I think that “criticism”, in a context like this topic of discussion, certainly includes something like “pointing to a flaw or lacuna, or suggesting an important or even necessary avenue for improvement”. I’d say that a request for examples of a claim qualifies as such, by pointing out that there aren’t already examples provided, and suggesting that it’s important to have some available for consideration. I’d call this sort of thing a fairly central type of criticism.
And as for “well-directed”, how does a blanket “Examples?”, absent any guidance about what kind, qualify?
What do you mean by this? I think that’s clear enough, in each of the linked cases, “what kind” of examples are needed.
In the first case, the request is for examples of bureaucracies being used in the described way.
In the second case, the request is for examples of things of the described “types”.
In the third case, the request is for examples of the described phenomenon.
I could continue, but… this really seems to me to be a quite strange objection. Is it really unclear what’s being asked for, in these cases? I rather doubt it.
Oh, I’m just engaging with you in precisely the way that you engage with others. This is what it feels like to be on the receiving end of Said (except I’ve only done it to you for, like, two comments, instead of relentlessly for years).
(I’ll be sure to keep “I could continue, but… this really seems to me to be a quite strange objection. Is it really unclear what’s being asked for, in these cases? I rather doubt it.” in a pasteboard, though; it’s the correct response to quite a large fraction of your comments.)
You seem to be suggesting that your questions weren’t asked in good faith, but rather as some sort of act.
If that’s so, then I must protest at your characterization of such behavior as being the way that I engage with others. I don’t think that bad faith, of all things, is an accusation that it makes any sense (much less is at all fair) to apply to my comments.
If, on the other hand, I’ve misinterpreted, and you were asking for examples and explanations in good faith—well, I’d say that I’ve provided both, and more than adequately. I hope that you may take inspiration from this, and consider behaving likewise in the future.
If “let’s be fair and justifiable in our assessments of one another’s internals” is a standard you’d like to employ, you’re something like 10,000 words too late in your treatment of me, and I find your hypocrisy … bold.
Separately, though, I wasn’t making any claims about your internals; I was mirroring your observable behavior, asking the kind of unnecessary and obtuse questions you reliably flood threads with. If I had a model of why you do this, I would’ve used that model to get you to stop long before this point.
I don’t think that “internals” has much to do with it. In this case, the accusation of bad faith is not based on some purported “internals”, but simply on behavior—statements, made by you. As I said, you seem to actually be saying that your earlier comments were made in bad faith. What need is there of “assessment of … internals”, when we have your plain words before us?
Likewise, I certainly don’t ask for fairness in assessment of my “internals”, nor, indeed, for any assessment of my “internals” at all; but fairness in assessing my behavior seems like an entirely reasonable thing to ask. Certainly it’s a standard which I’ve tried to follow, in my interactions with all members of Less Wrong.
You are confused about what my previous comment was referencing. I’ve added a link, since the clue of “something like 10,000 words” was apparently not enough to make clear that I wasn’t referring to the last couple of entries in this exchange.
Perhaps. Feel free to clarify, certainly. (EDIT: Ah, you edited in a clarification. But… why did you think that I was confused about that? It never occurred to me to think that you were referring only to this subthread. My comment is entirely unchanged by this attempted clarification, and I can’t imagine why you would expect otherwise…)
But it remains the case that, by your own admission, you seem to have been engaging in bad faith here. My response to that admission (and that that fact) stands.
If you care to describe “someone exhibiting the exact same conversational behaviors that I, Said, regularly exhibit” as bad faith, that’s certainly an interesting development.
I’d refer to it as “conforming to Said’s preferred norms of engagement.” I’m adopting your style; if you think that’s bad, then perhaps you should do things differently.
This comment seems pretty clearly to imply that you were not asking your questions in good faith. That seems to me to be the plain meaning of it, quite independent of any questions of what constitutes “my style” or “your style” or any such thing.
As I have never, to my recollection, engaged in bad faith, I must object to your characterization of such as being “my style” or “my preferred norms of engagement”.
As I have never, to my recollection, engaged in bad faith, I must object to your characterization such as being “my style” or “my preferred norms of engagement”.
Ah, but of course you would deny it. Why would you say “yeah, I flooded these threads with disingenuous whataboutery and isolated demands for rigor”? It would make you look pretty bad to admit that, wouldn’t it? Why shouldn’t you instead say that you asked every question because you were nobly contributing to the collaborative search for truth, or some other respectable reason? What downside is there, for you?
And given that, why in the world would we believe you when you say such things? Why would we ever believe any commenter who, after immediately identifying a certain kind of question as confusing and dubious and unlikely to be genuine, claims that when he asks such questions, they’re totally for good reasons? It doesn’t make any sense at all to take such a claim seriously!
(This comment also a near-exact reproduction of a Said comment, slightly modified to be appropriate to this situation, and thus surely the kind of utterance and reasoning that Said will overall endorse. I am slow to pick up Said-style lingo and will doubtless make errors as I climb up the learning curve; this kind of discourse is deeply alien to me and will take some time to master.)
after immediately identifying a certain kind of question as confusing and dubious and unlikely to be genuine
To what “certain kind of question” do you refer here?
In any case, the point remains that you admitted (as far as I can tell; and you haven’t disputed the interpretation) that you engaged in bad faith. I certainly haven’t done any such thing (naturally so, because such an “admission” would be a lie!).
Thus there is no need to believe or disbelieve me on that count; we need only check the record. As I have noted, I refer only to behavior here, not to “internals”.
why in the world would we believe you when you say such things?
But I wouldn’t say such things.
The difference between “disingenuous whataboutery” and “nobly contributing to the collaborative search for truth” hasn’t anything to do with anyone’s motivations, except insofar as they are reflected in their actions—but then we can simply examine, and discuss, those actions.
Something like, say, a request for examples of some purported claim, is good and praiseworthy, regardless of whether it is, secretly, posted for the most noble or the most nefarious of reasons.
The distinction you’re pointing to, here, is one of evaluation, not fact. So it makes no sense to speak of “believing”, or of “denying”. One may reasonably speaking of “disagreeing”, of “disputing”—but that is different.
why in the world would we believe you when you say such things?
But I wouldn’t say such things.
“Such things” above refers to your claim that you’ve never engaged in bad faith, which is a thing you just said.
I am no longer concerned with your beliefs about anything, after your blatant falsehoods in this comment, in which you explicitly claim that four different links each say something that none of them come even remotely close to saying. That is sufficient justification for me to categorize you as an intentional liar, and I will treat you as such from this point forward.
“Such things” above refers to your claim that you’ve never engaged in bad faith, which is a thing you just said.
But this makes no sense. As I made it clear, when speaking of “bad faith”, I was referring to your (apparent) admission of engaging in bad faith. There is no need to “believe” or “disbelieve” your subsequent claims about whether you’ve done this, after you’ve admitted doing so.
Certainly I wouldn’t say “you must believe me that I’m not engaging in bad faith [but this is entirely a matter of my internal state, and not public record]”. That is the sort of thing of which you might reasonably say “why would we believe you?”. So, indeed, I did not “just” (or ever, in my recollection) say any such thing.
your blatant falsehoods in this comment, in which you explicitly claim that four different links each say something that none of them come even remotely close to saying
On the contrary, I correctly (as far as I can tell) claim that the five provided links demonstrate that, as I said, you believe a certain thing. I did not claim that you said that thing, only that you clearly (so it seemed, and seems, to me) believe it. (Certainly your behavior is difficult to explain otherwise; and when a person says something—multiple times and in multiple ways—that sounds like X, and then they also act like they believe X, is it not reasonable to conclude that they believe X? Of course more complex explanations are possible, as they always are; but the simplest explanation remains.)
Now, you later—after I’d responded, and after the ensuing discussion thread—edited the linked comment (Wayback Machine link as evidence; screenshot)[1] to add an explicit disclaimer that you do not, in fact, hold the belief in question.
Had you included such a note at the outset, the conversation would have gone differently. (Perhaps more productively, perhaps not—but differently, in any case. For example, I would have asked you for examples of you asking for examples and of you providing examples when asked; and then—supposing that you gave them—we could have discussed those examples, and analyzed what made them different from those which I provided, and perhaps gained understanding thereby.)
But that note wasn’t there before. So, as I see it, I made a claim, which had, until that moment and to my knowledge, been contradicted by nothing—not even by any disclaimer from you. This claim seemed to me to be both true and fairly obvious. In response to a challenge (by gjm) that the claim seemed like a strawman, I provided evidence, which seemed (and continues to seem) to me to be convincing.
I do not see any way to construe this that makes it reasonable to all me an “intentional liar”. The charge, as far as I can tell, is wholly unsubstantiated.
Now, you may protest that the claim is actually false. Perhaps. Certainly I don’t make any pretensions to omniscience. But neither do I withdraw the claim entirely. While I would no longer say that I “do not think it’s controversial at all to ascribe this opinion” to you (obviously it is controversial!), your previous statements (including some in this very discussion thread) and your behavior continue (so it seems to me) to support my claim about your apparent views.
I now say “apparent”, of course, because you did say that you don’t, in fact, hold the belief which I ascribed to you. But that still leaves the question of why you write and act as though you did hold that belief. Is it that your actual views on the matter are similar to (perhaps even indistinguishable for practical purposes from) the previously-claimed belief, but differ in some nuance (whether that be important nuance or not)? Is it that there are some circumstantial factors at play, which you perceive but I do not? Something else?
I think that it would be useful—not just to you or to me, but to everyone on Less Wrong—to dig into this further.
Incidentally, I find this to be a quite unfortunate habit of yours. It has happened several times in this conversation that you posted some comment, I’ve responded to it, and then you later edited the comment in such a way that my response would’ve been very different if I’d read the edited version first (or, in some cases, would never have been written at all). In no cases almost no cases (EDIT: correction) have you signaled the edit (as I do when I edit for substance), leaving me no way to discover, except by vigilant watchfulness, that a comment I’d responded to now contained new and/or different words, sentences, paragraphs. I cannot but strongly disapprove of such behavior.
Actually, update: I just remembered I could ban them both from this post temporarily. I just did that, and undid the previous rate limit. I do ask them not to engage in various proxy threads about this in other posts.
further update: moderators talked for awhile today, writing up some thoughts. Most likely tomorrow we’ll post a top-level post briefly outlining the situation background, and post individual comments with our respective takes.
By the way, I’d like to call to your attention several other comments on that post:
The reply to my “Thanks, but I meant actual, real-world examples” comment:
Fair request—I have a few examples for consideration, which would probably be better to break out into individual comments attached to your parent to focus discussion.
Two comments (which describe, in detail, real-world cases purporting to be examples of the claimed phenomenon) posted as follow-ups:
At the time Samo was writing his sequence, I had a hesitation about the entire thing summed up by some of Said’s comments: it’s fairly easy to armchair philosophize about society. This post would be better with clear examples, and I’d still encourage Samo to rewrite this post and others to feature examples and evidence.
Nonetheless, all of my own experiences with bureaucracy roughly matches the descriptions given here. I recently explicitly linked back to this post to explain a point, and more generally, this models this post play an important role in how I think about group coordination.
(Do you disagree with the sentiment described in the first of those paragraphs?)
Well… this is somewhat disheartening. It seems that we are quite far from mutual understanding, despite efforts, because I would characterize the discussion thus far in almost entirely the opposite way. It seems to me that you haven’t given anything like a coherent account of what Duncan meant by “aiming for convergence on truth”; and I would say that most of what I’ve said has been abou what is and isn’t good to aim for, and only peripherally have I commented on what terminology is appropriate.
But then there is no particular reason to prefer the cooperative variant! Why would we ever want to converge with each other, if not because we believe that this will result in us both being closer to truth than if we had converged less? There isn’t any other motivation (except those which are decidedly not motivated by a desire to find the truth!).
Just so…
I disagree entirely. If something isn’t and also shouldn’t be a goal, then we shouldn’t say that we’re aiming for it. I mean, this really doesn’t seem complicated to me.
If you think that talking with intelligent climate change skeptics is a more effective way to get closer to the truth (in expectation) than perusing IPCC reports (a reasonable enough belief, certainly), then yes, if you do that, then you are “aiming for truth” (on the object level). If you don’t think that, and are talking with the skeptic only to gain understanding of what you believe to be a mistaken worldview, then of course you’re not “aiming for truth” (on the object level).
In both cases, convergence (on the object level) is a completely irrelevant red herring.
I do not agree. Quite simply, a comment like this one is “working together to find the truth”, and anyone who does not think so, but instead perceives it as some sort of attack, is precisely the problem.
(By the way, here is what it looks like when someone asks “what are some examples” and you don’t treat it as an attack, but instead as a way to clarify and elaborate on your claims. There is your “working together to find the truth”!)
And by extension, anything which is described by “working together to find the truth”, but which isn’t already included in “aiming for truth” as I understand it, goes in the Bad category.
I regret your disheartenment. I’m not sure what to do about it, though, so I shall just bear in mind that apparently at least one of us is having trouble understanding at least some of what the other writes and proceed.
As I said in the comment you were replying to, usually convergence-as-such should not be a goal. (I did also give an example of an important class of situations in which it reasonably might be.)
However, I want to register my not-total-agreement with an assumption I think you are making, namely that the only creditable motivation is “a desire to find the truth”. We all have many goals, and finding the truth on any particular issue is never going to be the only one, and there is nothing wrong or disreputable or foolish about doing something for reasons that are not all about optimizing truth-finding on the particular issue at hand.
Again, I don’t think that “end up with my opinion and so-and-so’s opinion closer together” is generally a worthwhile goal. But other related things may be even if optimizing truth-finding is the top-level goal. “Make this place where we try to find the truth together a pleasant place so that more truth-finding can happen here”. “Come to understand one another’s positions better, so that in future discussions our attempts at truth-finding aren’t obstructed by misunderstandings”. “Make it clear that I respect So-and-so, so that it’s less likely that he or others misinterpret something I say as a personal attack”. And other related things may be worthwhile goals although they have little impact on truth-finding efficacy as such. “Have an enjoyable discussion” and “Help the other person have an enjoyable discussion”, for instance. (One reason why people engage in discussion at all, when seeking the truth, rather than spending the time in solitary reading, thinking, etc., is that they enjoy discussion.)
I feel I’ve almost said everything I usefully can on this terminological question, but maybe it’s worth trying the following alternative tack. Since on the whole A and B tend to converge when they both approach the truth, and since this is especially true when the way they approach the truth is by discussing the issue in a manner intended to be mutually helpful, “approaching the truth” and “converging on truth” are both descriptions of the thing they are trying to achieve. Picking “converging on truth” over “approaching the truth” does not have to mean that you advocate pursuing (1) truth and (2) convergence as separate things. It can mean, and I think Duncan did mean, that you advocate pursuing truth, and the particular ways you have in mind for doing so are ones that tend to produce convergence.
Apparently you disagree. Fine. I have already said several times that I don’t think Duncan’s wording was optimal, after all. Something like “Aim to seek the truth together” or “Aim to seek the truth cooperatively” or “Aim to help one another arrive at the truth” would, I think, have expressed much the same idea; of course you might still object to those goals, but we’d at least be arguing about the goals rather than about the words. Still, I think Duncan’s wording is a reasonable way of gesturing at the general idea of working together, seeking mutual understanding, hoping to end up both arriving at the truth (as opposed to e.g. hoping to end up arriving at the truth oneself and rather looking forward to the other guy not getting there so one can prove one’s superiority), and generally trying to treat one another more as teammates than as bitter rivals; maybe you don’t; I am not sure that there is any value in further argument about the words as opposed to the ideas.
I don’t think it is necessary to think that in order for talking with an intelligent climate skeptic to be useful and to be reasonably described as “aiming for truth”. It isn’t the case that only doing the single most truth-productive thing available to you is “aiming for truth”.
Suppose (this is, after all, the situation I was proposing) you are already talking with an intelligent climate skeptic. Then maybe it’s true that (1) in expectation you think you will learn more for a given expenditure of time and effort by reading IPCC reports, but (2) you none the less expect to learn things by talking with the skeptic and (3) you also expect to help the skeptic learn things at the same time, and (4) since you’re already having a discussion it would be rude and annoying to just drop it and say “sorry, I have decided my time would be better spent reading IPCC reports”. I submit that despite (1), (2) justifies saying that the discussion is “aiming for truth” and (3) and (4) are reasons for having that discussion (and for trying to make it a constructive discussion where you try to work together, rather than just dumping quotations from IPCC reports on the skeptic).
I think you are replying not to me but to some imagined version of me that is claiming it’s always wrong to ask people for examples, even though in the comment you are replying to I said the exact opposite of that.
So, first of all, you’re contradicting yourself, because previously you were putting “aiming to understand one another” not in the Bad category but in the Irrelevant category, and affirming that working towards mutual understanding is a valuable thing even though you would prefer not to describe it as “aiming for convergence on the truth”.
But, aside from that, the difference between “aiming for truth” and “aiming for convergence on the truth”, as I have been conjecturing Duncan meant the term, is not about doing things other than aiming for truth, it’s about selecting particular ways of aiming for truth. (On the grounds 1. that they are ways of aiming for truth, and 2. that they make the place more pleasant for everyone, which 2a. is valuable in itself and 2b. encourages people to engage in discussion here, and 3. that they help not only you but the other party arrive at the truth, which again is valuable in itself, and 4. that they make future discussions more likely to be productive, etc.)
A comment like that one is not at all an attack.
But it’s also not at all “working together” to find truth. At best, it’s offering the other person a modicum of encouragement, and giving them a smidge of a reason to focus their attention here rather than in any of the other places they might have been considering putting extra words—promoting a particular opportunity to attention.
That’s not valueless, but it’s small. 100% of the subsequent actual work was done by ryan_b, who put forth substantial effort in a 300+ word comment, to which Said then replied:
… which is more of the “I’ll sit over here in the shade while you connect every dot for me” mentality that I personally find quite tiresome. I didn’t realize that, along with imperious calls for the intellectual and interpretive labor of others (with nothing whatsoever offered in exchange, such as e.g. one’s own bits of possibly-relevant information), there was also a mental story aggrandizing those calls as “working together with [the person doing all the work] to find truth.”
You undervalue this greatly, I think. Attention is perhaps the greatest commodity, and correctly identifying where to focus efforts is of tremendous value.
Writing a deluge of text is worth little. Concisely saying exactly what needs to be said, and no more, is the goal.
Effort spent on the wrong thing is worse than useless.
Of these options:
The dots remain un-connected and, indeed, not even drawn in the first place.
Dots are drawn by commeters, connecting them left to authors or other commenters. (There is no law, after all, that only the OP may “connect the dots” drawn by a commenter.)
Which do you choose?
And it is no good, please note, to protest that there is a third option of some commenter drawing and connecting the dots himself. For one thing, the results tend to be worse than the author doing it… but, more importantly, empirically this simply doesn’t happen. It’s one of those “fabricated options”.
So: you object to #2. #3 is unavailable. That leaves #1.
And that is precisely what we see, in many cases, where no one steps up and says “hey, what are some examples”, or asks some similar should-be-obvious question.
You are, of course, free to huff and get offended, and refuse to do the “intellectual and interpretive labor” of doing something so unreasonable as to provide examples of your claims (not even unprompted, but in response to a comment). Nobody’s forcing you to do anything but ignore such comments.
But who really loses, then? Is it the asker? Or is it you, and everyone in your audience?
What does it matter that the one who asks for examples offers you no “bits of possibly-relevant information” in exchange? Does that have the slightest bearing on whether having examples is necessary in order for the claims to be meaningful or useful?
Why is it even an “exchange” in the first place? If you make some claim, and I ask for examples, and you provide them, have you done something for me (and only for me)? Have you gained nothing from the exercise? Have all your other readers gained nothing?
Truly, I find your attitude toward such things baffling. It has always seemed to me that criticism—especially concise, well-directed criticism—is a gift, and a public service. Both when giving and when receiving it, I view criticism as a selfless contribution made to the commons, and a cooperative act—a way of helping both the author or creator of a work-in-progress (as most works of any value tend to be), and any other members of a collaborative community, to perfect it, together—building on one another’s commentary (critical and otherwise), responding to one another, contributing both generative and selective effort. Criticism cannot be the whole of that process, but it is an inseparable and necessary part of it.
Your transactional view, in contrast, really strikes me as quite strange. I cannot understand it. It seems to me quite clearly to be a worse way of doing things. Are you really quite sure that you want to reject all cooperation, all contributions, that do not conform to such transactional forms?
I agree. Please ping me if you ever offer any.
In lieu of that, I’d like to offer examples of good critical comments which I’ve received:
1 2 3 4 5 6
Some of these could be briefer, of course; though I can’t entirely begrudge their authors the reluctance to put in the effort to make their comments more concise. Still, it does seem to me that, on the whole, my own comment history is not too dissimilar from the above-linked set of comments made on one of my own posts. (And these are just the most useful ones!)
Do you disagree? Do you think that some or all of these comments are worthless, bad, harmful? (I assure you, I—the author of the post to which those commenters were responding—do not see them thus!) Or do you think that they bear no resemblance at all to my own commenting style? (That, too, seems like a dubious claim!)
Thanks, but I meant actual, written-by-you examples, that meet the criteria of being concise and well-directed criticism—not, like, ones written by other people. (Preferably, multiple examples that show you putting forth at least half of the effort required to bridge the inferential gap between you and the author as opposed to expecting them to connect all the dots themselves.)
(This comment is a mirroring of/reference to a specific Said comment, meant to highlight certain properties of how Said engages with people.)
Well, if you insist, I’ll be glad to provide such examples; I was mostly trying to give a helpful additional perspective on the matter, while also avoiding “tooting my own horn”.
However, I do want to object to this part:
My earlier comment said:
You are asking for examples of “concise, well-directed criticism”; fair enough. But what has this business about “putting forth at least half of the effort”, etc., got to do with anything? I certainly don’t agree with the implication that good and useful criticism (whether concise or not) must necessarily show the criticizer putting forth any specific amount of effort. (As I’ve said many times, effort, as such, is of no value.)
Furthermore, you have mentioned the “inferential gap” several times, and suggested that it is the criticizer’s job, at least in part, to bridge it. I disagree.
For one thing, the “inferential gap” framing suggests a scenario where Alice writes something which is true and correct, and Bob doesn’t understand it. But surely this isn’t to be taken for granted? Couldn’t Alice be wrong? Couldn’t what she’s written be nonsense? Couldn’t Alice be, as you put it, “full of shit to begin with”? (Many people are, you know!)
And it quite mystifies me why you would suggest that it’s the job of interlocutors to bridge any such purported gap. Of course it’s not! A commenter who has read some post and honestly finds that its truth is not evident, or its meaning unclear, and asks the author for explanations, clarifications, examples, etc., owes the author no “half of the effort to bridge the inferential gap”. That’s the author’s job. Fair consideration, honest communication, an open but critical mind, basic courtesy—these things are owed. But doing the author’s job for them? Certainly not.
With that said, here are some examples of comments, written by me, containing criticism which is inarguably concise and arguably well-directed (at least, I judge it to be so):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(I have more examples of what I’d consider well-directed criticism; but when it comes to brevity, I’m afraid I can’t do any better than the above-linked comments… well, as they say: growth mindset!)
I’m sorry, how do any of those (except possibly 4) satisfy any reasonable definition of the word “criticism?” And as for “well-directed”, how does a blanket “Examples?”, absent any guidance about what kind, qualify? Literally the property that these examples specifically and conspicuously lack is “direction.”
(This comment is a mirroring of/reference to Said’s commenting style, meant to highlight certain properties of how Said engages with people.)
Well, I think that “criticism”, in a context like this topic of discussion, certainly includes something like “pointing to a flaw or lacuna, or suggesting an important or even necessary avenue for improvement”. I’d say that a request for examples of a claim qualifies as such, by pointing out that there aren’t already examples provided, and suggesting that it’s important to have some available for consideration. I’d call this sort of thing a fairly central type of criticism.
What do you mean by this? I think that’s clear enough, in each of the linked cases, “what kind” of examples are needed.
In the first case, the request is for examples of bureaucracies being used in the described way.
In the second case, the request is for examples of things of the described “types”.
In the third case, the request is for examples of the described phenomenon.
I could continue, but… this really seems to me to be a quite strange objection. Is it really unclear what’s being asked for, in these cases? I rather doubt it.
Oh, I’m just engaging with you in precisely the way that you engage with others. This is what it feels like to be on the receiving end of Said (except I’ve only done it to you for, like, two comments, instead of relentlessly for years).
(I’ll be sure to keep “I could continue, but… this really seems to me to be a quite strange objection. Is it really unclear what’s being asked for, in these cases? I rather doubt it.” in a pasteboard, though; it’s the correct response to quite a large fraction of your comments.)
You seem to be suggesting that your questions weren’t asked in good faith, but rather as some sort of act.
If that’s so, then I must protest at your characterization of such behavior as being the way that I engage with others. I don’t think that bad faith, of all things, is an accusation that it makes any sense (much less is at all fair) to apply to my comments.
If, on the other hand, I’ve misinterpreted, and you were asking for examples and explanations in good faith—well, I’d say that I’ve provided both, and more than adequately. I hope that you may take inspiration from this, and consider behaving likewise in the future.
If “let’s be fair and justifiable in our assessments of one another’s internals” is a standard you’d like to employ, you’re something like 10,000 words too late in your treatment of me, and I find your hypocrisy … bold.
Separately, though, I wasn’t making any claims about your internals; I was mirroring your observable behavior, asking the kind of unnecessary and obtuse questions you reliably flood threads with. If I had a model of why you do this, I would’ve used that model to get you to stop long before this point.
I don’t think that “internals” has much to do with it. In this case, the accusation of bad faith is not based on some purported “internals”, but simply on behavior—statements, made by you. As I said, you seem to actually be saying that your earlier comments were made in bad faith. What need is there of “assessment of … internals”, when we have your plain words before us?
Likewise, I certainly don’t ask for fairness in assessment of my “internals”, nor, indeed, for any assessment of my “internals” at all; but fairness in assessing my behavior seems like an entirely reasonable thing to ask. Certainly it’s a standard which I’ve tried to follow, in my interactions with all members of Less Wrong.
You are confused about what my previous comment was referencing. I’ve added a link, since the clue of “something like 10,000 words” was apparently not enough to make clear that I wasn’t referring to the last couple of entries in this exchange.
Perhaps.
Feel free to clarify, certainly.(EDIT: Ah, you edited in a clarification. But… why did you think that I was confused about that? It never occurred to me to think that you were referring only to this subthread. My comment is entirely unchanged by this attempted clarification, and I can’t imagine why you would expect otherwise…)But it remains the case that, by your own admission, you seem to have been engaging in bad faith here. My response to that admission (and that that fact) stands.
If you care to describe “someone exhibiting the exact same conversational behaviors that I, Said, regularly exhibit” as bad faith, that’s certainly an interesting development.
I’d refer to it as “conforming to Said’s preferred norms of engagement.” I’m adopting your style; if you think that’s bad, then perhaps you should do things differently.
This comment seems pretty clearly to imply that you were not asking your questions in good faith. That seems to me to be the plain meaning of it, quite independent of any questions of what constitutes “my style” or “your style” or any such thing.
As I have never, to my recollection, engaged in bad faith, I must object to your characterization of such as being “my style” or “my preferred norms of engagement”.
Ah, but of course you would deny it. Why would you say “yeah, I flooded these threads with disingenuous whataboutery and isolated demands for rigor”? It would make you look pretty bad to admit that, wouldn’t it? Why shouldn’t you instead say that you asked every question because you were nobly contributing to the collaborative search for truth, or some other respectable reason? What downside is there, for you?
And given that, why in the world would we believe you when you say such things? Why would we ever believe any commenter who, after immediately identifying a certain kind of question as confusing and dubious and unlikely to be genuine, claims that when he asks such questions, they’re totally for good reasons? It doesn’t make any sense at all to take such a claim seriously!
(This comment also a near-exact reproduction of a Said comment, slightly modified to be appropriate to this situation, and thus surely the kind of utterance and reasoning that Said will overall endorse. I am slow to pick up Said-style lingo and will doubtless make errors as I climb up the learning curve; this kind of discourse is deeply alien to me and will take some time to master.)
To what “certain kind of question” do you refer here?
In any case, the point remains that you admitted (as far as I can tell; and you haven’t disputed the interpretation) that you engaged in bad faith. I certainly haven’t done any such thing (naturally so, because such an “admission” would be a lie!).
Thus there is no need to believe or disbelieve me on that count; we need only check the record. As I have noted, I refer only to behavior here, not to “internals”.
But I wouldn’t say such things.
The difference between “disingenuous whataboutery” and “nobly contributing to the collaborative search for truth” hasn’t anything to do with anyone’s motivations, except insofar as they are reflected in their actions—but then we can simply examine, and discuss, those actions.
Something like, say, a request for examples of some purported claim, is good and praiseworthy, regardless of whether it is, secretly, posted for the most noble or the most nefarious of reasons.
The distinction you’re pointing to, here, is one of evaluation, not fact. So it makes no sense to speak of “believing”, or of “denying”. One may reasonably speaking of “disagreeing”, of “disputing”—but that is different.
“Such things” above refers to your claim that you’ve never engaged in bad faith, which is a thing you just said.
I am no longer concerned with your beliefs about anything, after your blatant falsehoods in this comment, in which you explicitly claim that four different links each say something that none of them come even remotely close to saying. That is sufficient justification for me to categorize you as an intentional liar, and I will treat you as such from this point forward.
But this makes no sense. As I made it clear, when speaking of “bad faith”, I was referring to your (apparent) admission of engaging in bad faith. There is no need to “believe” or “disbelieve” your subsequent claims about whether you’ve done this, after you’ve admitted doing so.
Certainly I wouldn’t say “you must believe me that I’m not engaging in bad faith [but this is entirely a matter of my internal state, and not public record]”. That is the sort of thing of which you might reasonably say “why would we believe you?”. So, indeed, I did not “just” (or ever, in my recollection) say any such thing.
On the contrary, I correctly (as far as I can tell) claim that the five provided links demonstrate that, as I said, you believe a certain thing. I did not claim that you said that thing, only that you clearly (so it seemed, and seems, to me) believe it. (Certainly your behavior is difficult to explain otherwise; and when a person says something—multiple times and in multiple ways—that sounds like X, and then they also act like they believe X, is it not reasonable to conclude that they believe X? Of course more complex explanations are possible, as they always are; but the simplest explanation remains.)
Now, you later—after I’d responded, and after the ensuing discussion thread—edited the linked comment (Wayback Machine link as evidence; screenshot)[1] to add an explicit disclaimer that you do not, in fact, hold the belief in question.
Had you included such a note at the outset, the conversation would have gone differently. (Perhaps more productively, perhaps not—but differently, in any case. For example, I would have asked you for examples of you asking for examples and of you providing examples when asked; and then—supposing that you gave them—we could have discussed those examples, and analyzed what made them different from those which I provided, and perhaps gained understanding thereby.)
But that note wasn’t there before. So, as I see it, I made a claim, which had, until that moment and to my knowledge, been contradicted by nothing—not even by any disclaimer from you. This claim seemed to me to be both true and fairly obvious. In response to a challenge (by gjm) that the claim seemed like a strawman, I provided evidence, which seemed (and continues to seem) to me to be convincing.
I do not see any way to construe this that makes it reasonable to all me an “intentional liar”. The charge, as far as I can tell, is wholly unsubstantiated.
Now, you may protest that the claim is actually false. Perhaps. Certainly I don’t make any pretensions to omniscience. But neither do I withdraw the claim entirely. While I would no longer say that I “do not think it’s controversial at all to ascribe this opinion” to you (obviously it is controversial!), your previous statements (including some in this very discussion thread) and your behavior continue (so it seems to me) to support my claim about your apparent views.
I now say “apparent”, of course, because you did say that you don’t, in fact, hold the belief which I ascribed to you. But that still leaves the question of why you write and act as though you did hold that belief. Is it that your actual views on the matter are similar to (perhaps even indistinguishable for practical purposes from) the previously-claimed belief, but differ in some nuance (whether that be important nuance or not)? Is it that there are some circumstantial factors at play, which you perceive but I do not? Something else?
I think that it would be useful—not just to you or to me, but to everyone on Less Wrong—to dig into this further.
Incidentally, I find this to be a quite unfortunate habit of yours. It has happened several times in this conversation that you posted some comment, I’ve responded to it, and then you later edited the comment in such a way that my response would’ve been very different if I’d read the edited version first (or, in some cases, would never have been written at all). In
no casesalmost no cases (EDIT: correction) have you signaled the edit (as I do when I edit for substance), leaving me no way to discover, except by vigilant watchfulness, that a comment I’d responded to now contained new and/or different words, sentences, paragraphs. I cannot but strongly disapprove of such behavior.Mod note: I just gave Duncan and Said a commenting rate-limit of 1-per-day, mostly as a “slow down and give mods time to actually think” measure.
(This is not my ideal technological solution to the situation, but it was the easiest one to implement quickly, apologies)
Actually, update: I just remembered I could ban them both from this post temporarily. I just did that, and undid the previous rate limit. I do ask them not to engage in various proxy threads about this in other posts.
further update: moderators talked for awhile today, writing up some thoughts. Most likely tomorrow we’ll post a top-level post briefly outlining the situation background, and post individual comments with our respective takes.
Needless to say, I don’t agree with your characterization (as my comment in that thread notes).
By the way, I’d like to call to your attention several other comments on that post:
The reply to my “Thanks, but I meant actual, real-world examples” comment:
Two comments (which describe, in detail, real-world cases purporting to be examples of the claimed phenomenon) posted as follow-ups:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/brQwWwZSQbWBFRNvh/how-to-use-bureaucracies#j7C5JmbhpP9boBrNe
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/brQwWwZSQbWBFRNvh/how-to-use-bureaucracies#oshL8azidaBNEipgK
(Do you think the discussion was made better by these two comments’ presence? Made worse? Unaffected?)
A comment by Raemon, which says:
(Do you disagree with the sentiment described in the first of those paragraphs?)