I interpret the quoted statement as “I am willing to make an effort that I don’t usually do, by commenting more, based on your assessment of the importance of giving feedback”, assuming good faith.
There’s an uncertainty, of course, as whether it will actually turn out important. “I can try” suggests they will try even if they don’t know, and we won’t know if they will succeed until they try.
Yes, you can interpret the statement in an uncharitable way with respect to their goodwill, but this is not what is, in my opinion, conducive to healthy comment sections in general.
That’s certainly the intended meaning, but the statement itself is in fact heavy with qualifiers. This fact doesn’t vary with goodwill.
I think the first of the qualifiers, “If what you say is true, I’ll act on what you say,” is actually a harmful antipattern, since it commits to action on the assumption that the statement is true while pretending to commit to action in case the statement is true, thus reserving doubt about the statement. It would be healthier to either commit to action on the assumption of doubt, or to refuse to commit because of doubt.
This makes sense, and I’ve updated the comment to reflect what I meant more accurately. Though I think the improvement is very minor, and your time could likely be spent on more important things than providing marginal improvements to LessWrong comments, I thank you none-the-less.
The original comment seems to have been edited to a sharper statement (thanks, D0TheMath), I hope it’s enough to clear up things.
I agree this qualifier pattern is harmful, in the context of collective action problems, when mutual trust and commitment has to be more firmly established. I don’t believe we’re in that context, hence my comment.
I don’t believe we’re in that context, hence my comment.
It’s important to practice habits when they are useless, or else you end up unpracticed when you need them. So I disagree that a (cheap) habit not being useful in some case is a reason to disregard lack of its use in that case.
I interpret the quoted statement as “I am willing to make an effort that I don’t usually do, by commenting more, based on your assessment of the importance of giving feedback”, assuming good faith.
There’s an uncertainty, of course, as whether it will actually turn out important. “I can try” suggests they will try even if they don’t know, and we won’t know if they will succeed until they try.
Yes, you can interpret the statement in an uncharitable way with respect to their goodwill, but this is not what is, in my opinion, conducive to healthy comment sections in general.
That’s certainly the intended meaning, but the statement itself is in fact heavy with qualifiers. This fact doesn’t vary with goodwill.
I think the first of the qualifiers, “If what you say is true, I’ll act on what you say,” is actually a harmful antipattern, since it commits to action on the assumption that the statement is true while pretending to commit to action in case the statement is true, thus reserving doubt about the statement. It would be healthier to either commit to action on the assumption of doubt, or to refuse to commit because of doubt.
This makes sense, and I’ve updated the comment to reflect what I meant more accurately. Though I think the improvement is very minor, and your time could likely be spent on more important things than providing marginal improvements to LessWrong comments, I thank you none-the-less.
The original comment seems to have been edited to a sharper statement (thanks, D0TheMath), I hope it’s enough to clear up things.
I agree this qualifier pattern is harmful, in the context of collective action problems, when mutual trust and commitment has to be more firmly established. I don’t believe we’re in that context, hence my comment.
It’s important to practice habits when they are useless, or else you end up unpracticed when you need them. So I disagree that a (cheap) habit not being useful in some case is a reason to disregard lack of its use in that case.