On reflection, it’s not actually about which position is more common. My real objection is that imo it was pretty obvious that something along these lines would be the crux between you and Neel (and the fact that it is a common position is part of why I think it was obvious).
Inasmuch as you are actually trying to have a conversation with Neel or address Neel’s argument on its merits, it would be good to be clear that this is the crux. I guess perhaps you might just not care about that and are instead trying to influence readers without engaging with the OP’s point of view, in which case fair enough. Personally I would find that distasteful / not in keeping with my norms around collective-epistemics but I do admit it’s within LW norms.
(Incidentally, I feel like you still aren’t quite pinning down your position—depending on what you mean by “reliably” I would probably agree with “marginalist approaches don’t reliably improve things”. I’d also agree with “X doesn’t reliably improve things” for almost any interesting value of X.)
On reflection, it’s not actually about which position is more common. My real objection is that imo it was pretty obvious that something along these lines would be the crux between you and Neel (and the fact that it is a common position is part of why I think it was obvious).
Inasmuch as you are actually trying to have a conversation with Neel or address Neel’s argument on its merits, it would be good to be clear that this is the crux. I guess perhaps you might just not care about that and are instead trying to influence readers without engaging with the OP’s point of view, in which case fair enough. Personally I would find that distasteful / not in keeping with my norms around collective-epistemics but I do admit it’s within LW norms.
(Incidentally, I feel like you still aren’t quite pinning down your position—depending on what you mean by “reliably” I would probably agree with “marginalist approaches don’t reliably improve things”. I’d also agree with “X doesn’t reliably improve things” for almost any interesting value of X.)