To be humble is to take specific actions in anticipation of your own errors. To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty.
I don’t know why EY was taking grief for this. It’s a good distinction, well phrased.
On the other side of the pancake, I’d say that intellectual arrogance is often similarly misconstrued.
People often take open disagreement as a sign of intellectual arrogance, while it is a display of respect and humility; showing respect with the honest acknowledgment of your disagreement, and showing humility in affording the other person a chance to defend themselves and prove you wrong. To say nothing is to treat that person’s beliefs dismissively, as if they don’t matter, and then assume that discussion was futile because they’re incapable of understanding the truth, and of course, couldn’t possible have anything to teach you.
A majority of people openly disagreeing with others are doing so out of pride, not a desire to learn. The exact flavour of pride varies. Some feel that they are righteously doing their duty to defend their opinion and remain true to themselves and/or their tribe, some want to feel like they are doing a favour to humanity by enlightening others, some disagree to humiliate a person with a contradictory opinion because they dislike the person, some disagree to challenge a person’s social status rather than challenging his opinion, some because they take pride in being edgy or non-conformist, some just want to flaunt their opinion and superior knowledge. The fact that people interpret open disagreement as arrogance is quite a reasonable assumption since the probability of a person openly disagreeing with them not out of pride is negligibly low, at least outside the rationalist community. (Even within the rationalist community, it is still relatively unlikely that a person disagree for an opportunity to refine their model of the universe. Even rationalists regularly fall prey to emotions such as pride.)
it is still relatively unlikely that a person disagree for an opportunity to refine their model of the universe.
It still does happen though. I’ve only gotten this far in the Recommended Sequences, but I’ve been reading the comments whenever I finish a sub-sequence; and they (a) definitely add to the understanding, and (b) expose occasional comment threads where two people arrive at mutual understanding (clear up lexical miscommunication etc.). “oops” moments are rare, but the whole karma system seems great for occasional productive discourse.
That is obviously not an analog for the face-to-face experience, but isn’t the “take a chance on it” approach still better then a general prohibitive “not worth it” attitude? You can be polite (self-skeptical etc.) while probing your metaphorical opponent. Non confrontational discussions are kind of essential to furthering one’s understanding about what’s going on and why.
If someone could convince people at large that this is true it would make intelligent dicussion much easier. Trying to convince people to abandon the treasured perks of high status might prove difficult however.
I don’t know why EY was taking grief for this. It’s a good distinction, well phrased.
On the other side of the pancake, I’d say that intellectual arrogance is often similarly misconstrued.
People often take open disagreement as a sign of intellectual arrogance, while it is a display of respect and humility; showing respect with the honest acknowledgment of your disagreement, and showing humility in affording the other person a chance to defend themselves and prove you wrong. To say nothing is to treat that person’s beliefs dismissively, as if they don’t matter, and then assume that discussion was futile because they’re incapable of understanding the truth, and of course, couldn’t possible have anything to teach you.
A majority of people openly disagreeing with others are doing so out of pride, not a desire to learn. The exact flavour of pride varies. Some feel that they are righteously doing their duty to defend their opinion and remain true to themselves and/or their tribe, some want to feel like they are doing a favour to humanity by enlightening others, some disagree to humiliate a person with a contradictory opinion because they dislike the person, some disagree to challenge a person’s social status rather than challenging his opinion, some because they take pride in being edgy or non-conformist, some just want to flaunt their opinion and superior knowledge. The fact that people interpret open disagreement as arrogance is quite a reasonable assumption since the probability of a person openly disagreeing with them not out of pride is negligibly low, at least outside the rationalist community. (Even within the rationalist community, it is still relatively unlikely that a person disagree for an opportunity to refine their model of the universe. Even rationalists regularly fall prey to emotions such as pride.)
It still does happen though. I’ve only gotten this far in the Recommended Sequences, but I’ve been reading the comments whenever I finish a sub-sequence; and they (a) definitely add to the understanding, and (b) expose occasional comment threads where two people arrive at mutual understanding (clear up lexical miscommunication etc.). “oops” moments are rare, but the whole karma system seems great for occasional productive discourse.
That is obviously not an analog for the face-to-face experience, but isn’t the “take a chance on it” approach still better then a general prohibitive “not worth it” attitude? You can be polite (self-skeptical etc.) while probing your metaphorical opponent. Non confrontational discussions are kind of essential to furthering one’s understanding about what’s going on and why.
If someone could convince people at large that this is true it would make intelligent dicussion much easier. Trying to convince people to abandon the treasured perks of high status might prove difficult however.