I don’t get it. You want us to work with those who refuse to ‘punish’ foolishness but who aren’t fools themselves to, presumably, fight against foolishness. All right, I can see the sense in that.
Why does it follow that we should censor ourselves when dealing with these non-foolish foolishness enablers? Why can’t we work with them and show our disapproval of their enabling?
Not everyone reacts badly to disapproval and criticism, only fools. The people Eliezer wants us to work with are assumed to not be fools.
If some of them refuse to work with us unless we pretend to respect everything they think and do, it only shows that they weren’t really interested in promoting rationality in the first place.
Who’s the real fool, the one who reacts badly to disapproval and criticism, or the one who thinks he doesn’t?
We’re all human here, Furcas. Being able to listen to someone criticizing your actions without getting angry is a goal worth achieving, in my opinion, but I haven’t achieved it. And maybe I’m not worth bothering with, but I imagine that many of the people who are worth bothering with are the same way. I would bet that even our Glorious Leader Eliezer is that way.
Are there exceptions in terms of your first root reaction, or just in terms of your eventual net reaction? I work to consciously reward people for accurately criticizing me, and to consciously reduce the inaccurate negative feelings I form about those who criticize me. But there are major recent gaps in my performance here, and while I’m improving by increasing my awareness of the distortions I generate and of the “outside view” probabilities involved, I don’t expect to soon remove the root response.
If anyone has good strategies for dealing well with criticism, I’m interested.
Depending on what it is that the other person disapproves of about me, I might feel annoyed or offended. But so what if I do? If I’m cooperating with a person to achieve something that’s important to me, learning that he thinks one of my beliefs is stupid (for example) isn’t going to change anything about my resolve to cooperate. Feeling otherwise would be foolish.
As it turns out, I have been called ‘dogmatic’ and ‘fundamentalist’ and various other charming adjectives because of my belief that an essential part of fostering the growth of a rational society consists of creating a social climate in which irrationality is seen in a bad light, and the best way to do that is conversational intolerance of unreason. I can’t say I enjoyed being called dogmatic, but it hasn’t affected my desire to cooperate with those I see as mostly rational enablers of foolishness. If I can get over my hurt feelings, why can’t they?
Maybe because you are hurting and getting hurt, but these “enablers of foolishness” are getting hurt while they don’t (consciously) hurt others, and therefore would probably consider unfair to be attacked.
I don’t get it. You want us to work with those who refuse to ‘punish’ foolishness but who aren’t fools themselves to, presumably, fight against foolishness. All right, I can see the sense in that.
Why does it follow that we should censor ourselves when dealing with these non-foolish foolishness enablers? Why can’t we work with them and show our disapproval of their enabling?
Because in human society, voicing your disapproval is a form of punishment, which people will react badly to, and will make it hard to work with them.
Not everyone reacts badly to disapproval and criticism, only fools. The people Eliezer wants us to work with are assumed to not be fools.
If some of them refuse to work with us unless we pretend to respect everything they think and do, it only shows that they weren’t really interested in promoting rationality in the first place.
Who’s the real fool, the one who reacts badly to disapproval and criticism, or the one who thinks he doesn’t?
We’re all human here, Furcas. Being able to listen to someone criticizing your actions without getting angry is a goal worth achieving, in my opinion, but I haven’t achieved it. And maybe I’m not worth bothering with, but I imagine that many of the people who are worth bothering with are the same way. I would bet that even our Glorious Leader Eliezer is that way.
Depends on what I believe about the person criticizing me. On average you’d probably win the bet, but there are exceptions.
Are there exceptions in terms of your first root reaction, or just in terms of your eventual net reaction? I work to consciously reward people for accurately criticizing me, and to consciously reduce the inaccurate negative feelings I form about those who criticize me. But there are major recent gaps in my performance here, and while I’m improving by increasing my awareness of the distortions I generate and of the “outside view” probabilities involved, I don’t expect to soon remove the root response.
If anyone has good strategies for dealing well with criticism, I’m interested.
Depending on what it is that the other person disapproves of about me, I might feel annoyed or offended. But so what if I do? If I’m cooperating with a person to achieve something that’s important to me, learning that he thinks one of my beliefs is stupid (for example) isn’t going to change anything about my resolve to cooperate. Feeling otherwise would be foolish.
As it turns out, I have been called ‘dogmatic’ and ‘fundamentalist’ and various other charming adjectives because of my belief that an essential part of fostering the growth of a rational society consists of creating a social climate in which irrationality is seen in a bad light, and the best way to do that is conversational intolerance of unreason. I can’t say I enjoyed being called dogmatic, but it hasn’t affected my desire to cooperate with those I see as mostly rational enablers of foolishness. If I can get over my hurt feelings, why can’t they?
Maybe because you are hurting and getting hurt, but these “enablers of foolishness” are getting hurt while they don’t (consciously) hurt others, and therefore would probably consider unfair to be attacked.