So far as I can tell, the actual claim you’re making in the post is a pretty strong one , and I agree that if you believe that you shouldn’t represet your opinion as weaker than it is. However, I don’t think the post provides much evidence to support the rather strong strong claim it makes. You say that the guidelines are:
much closer to being something like an objectively correct description of How To Do It Right than they are to a mere random user’s personal opinion
and I think this might be true, but it would be a mistake for a random user, possibly new to this site, to accept your description over their own based on the evidence you provide. I worry that some will regardless given the ~declarative way your post seems to be framed.
I think I am probably misreading you, but what I think that sentence meant is something like:
Random newcomers to LW have a clear sense of what constitutes the core of good rationalist discourse
They’re more likely to be right than I am, or we’re “equally right” or something (I disagree with a cultural relativist claim in this arena, if you’re making one, but it’s not unreasonable to make one)
They will see this post and erroneously update to it, just because it’s upvoted, or because the title pretends to universality, or something similar
Reiterating that I’m probably misunderstanding you, I think it’s a mistake to model this as a situation where, like, “Duncan’s providing inadequate evidence of his claims.”
I’m a messenger. The norms can be evaluated extremely easily on their own; they’re not “claims” in the sense that they need rigorous evidence to back them up. You can just … look, and see that these are, on the whole, some very basic, very simple, very straightforward, and pretty self-evidently useful guidelines.
(Alternatively, you can look at demon threads and trashfires and flamewars and go “oh, look, there’s the opposite of like eight of the ten guidelines in the space of two comments.”)
I suppose one could be like “has Duncan REALLY proven that Julia Galef et al speak this way?” but I note that in over 150 comments (including a good amount of disagreement) basically nobody has raised that hypothesis. In addition to the overall popularity of the list, nobody’s been like, “nuh-uh, those people aren’t good communicators!” or “nuh-uh, those good communicators’ speech is not well-modeled by this!”
I think that, if you were to take a population of 100 random newcomers to LessWrong, well over 70% of them would lack some subset of this list and greatly benefit from learning and practicing it, and the small number for whom this is bad advice/who already have A Good Thing going on in their own thinking and communication are unusually unlikely to accidentally make a bad update.
Or, in other words: I think [the thing that you fear happening] is [a genuinely good thing], unless I’ve misunderstood you. Well-kept gardens die by a lack of good standards; the eternal September problem is real.
They’re more likely to be right than I am, or we’re “equally right” or something
I don’t think this so much as I think that a new person to lesswrong shouldn’t assume you are more likely to be right then they are, without evidence.
The norms can be evaluated extremely easily on their own; they’re not “claims” in the sense that they need rigorous evidence to back them up. You can just … look, and see that these are, on the whole, some very basic, very simple, very straightforward, and pretty self-evidently useful guidelines.
Strongly disagree. They don’t seem easy to evaluate to me, they don’t seem straightforward, and most of all they don’t seem self-evidently useful. (I admit, someone telling me something I don’t understand is self-evident is a pet peeve of mine).
I suppose one could be like “has Duncan REALLY proven that Julia Galef et al speak this way?” but I note that in over 150 comments (including a good amount of disagreement) basically nobody has raised that hypothesis. In addition to the overall popularity of the list, nobody’s been like, “nuh-uh, those people aren’t good communicators!” or “nuh-uh, those good communicators’ speech is not well-modeled by this!”
I personally have had negative experiences with communicating with someone on this list. I don’t particularly think I’m comfortable hashing it out in public, though you can dm me if you’re that curious. Ultimately I don’t think it matters—however many impressive great communicators are on that list—I don’t feel willing to take their word (or well, your word about their words) that these norms are good unless I’m actually convinced myself.
Edit to add: I’d be good with standards, I just am not a fan of this particular way of pushing-for/implementing them.
Your own engagement in these three comments has been (I think naturally/non-artificially/not because you’re trying to comply) pretty well-described by those guidelines!
I hear you re: not a fan of this method, and again, I want to validate that. I did consider people with your reaction before posting, and I do consider it a cost. But I think that the most likely alternatives (nothing, attempt to crowdsource, make the claim seem more personal) were all substantially worse.
As a new user, and a novice in rational discourse, I absolutely agree with you here (though I’m not sure how much validation you might get from this comment, if any).
As is the case with any source of information (outside or inside LW), it is extremely important to doubt and question its validity, and I think that this is not intuitive, and rather hard for most people. Your guidelines helped solidify some thoughts that I previously had about better communication (truth seeking), while giving me insights on things I was probably doing wrong.
As far as an introductory course goes, this post is excellent. I do think that it could be made simpler, in the sense that newcomers might not be familiar with a majority of the terms presented (I myself had to stop several times to research on them), but that, is in a way, an appropriate introduction to the hardships of rationality (I learned a lot).
Newcomers should all strive to make individual modifications, but only after they grasp what the intentions behind the guideline.
So far as I can tell, the actual claim you’re making in the post is a pretty strong one , and I agree that if you believe that you shouldn’t represet your opinion as weaker than it is. However, I don’t think the post provides much evidence to support the rather strong strong claim it makes. You say that the guidelines are:
and I think this might be true, but it would be a mistake for a random user, possibly new to this site, to accept your description over their own based on the evidence you provide. I worry that some will regardless given the ~declarative way your post seems to be framed.
What do you mean “over their own”?
I think I am probably misreading you, but what I think that sentence meant is something like:
Random newcomers to LW have a clear sense of what constitutes the core of good rationalist discourse
They’re more likely to be right than I am, or we’re “equally right” or something (I disagree with a cultural relativist claim in this arena, if you’re making one, but it’s not unreasonable to make one)
They will see this post and erroneously update to it, just because it’s upvoted, or because the title pretends to universality, or something similar
Reiterating that I’m probably misunderstanding you, I think it’s a mistake to model this as a situation where, like, “Duncan’s providing inadequate evidence of his claims.”
I’m a messenger. The norms can be evaluated extremely easily on their own; they’re not “claims” in the sense that they need rigorous evidence to back them up. You can just … look, and see that these are, on the whole, some very basic, very simple, very straightforward, and pretty self-evidently useful guidelines.
(Alternatively, you can look at demon threads and trashfires and flamewars and go “oh, look, there’s the opposite of like eight of the ten guidelines in the space of two comments.”)
I suppose one could be like “has Duncan REALLY proven that Julia Galef et al speak this way?” but I note that in over 150 comments (including a good amount of disagreement) basically nobody has raised that hypothesis. In addition to the overall popularity of the list, nobody’s been like, “nuh-uh, those people aren’t good communicators!” or “nuh-uh, those good communicators’ speech is not well-modeled by this!”
I think that, if you were to take a population of 100 random newcomers to LessWrong, well over 70% of them would lack some subset of this list and greatly benefit from learning and practicing it, and the small number for whom this is bad advice/who already have A Good Thing going on in their own thinking and communication are unusually unlikely to accidentally make a bad update.
Or, in other words: I think [the thing that you fear happening] is [a genuinely good thing], unless I’ve misunderstood you. Well-kept gardens die by a lack of good standards; the eternal September problem is real.
Okay, a few things:
I don’t think this so much as I think that a new person to lesswrong shouldn’t assume you are more likely to be right then they are, without evidence.
Strongly disagree. They don’t seem easy to evaluate to me, they don’t seem straightforward, and most of all they don’t seem self-evidently useful. (I admit, someone telling me something I don’t understand is self-evident is a pet peeve of mine).
I personally have had negative experiences with communicating with someone on this list. I don’t particularly think I’m comfortable hashing it out in public, though you can dm me if you’re that curious. Ultimately I don’t think it matters—however many impressive great communicators are on that list—I don’t feel willing to take their word (or well, your word about their words) that these norms are good unless I’m actually convinced myself.
Edit to add: I’d be good with standards, I just am not a fan of this particular way of pushing-for/implementing them.
Well, not to be annoying, but:
Your own engagement in these three comments has been (I think naturally/non-artificially/not because you’re trying to comply) pretty well-described by those guidelines!
I hear you re: not a fan of this method, and again, I want to validate that. I did consider people with your reaction before posting, and I do consider it a cost. But I think that the most likely alternatives (nothing, attempt to crowdsource, make the claim seem more personal) were all substantially worse.
As a new user, and a novice in rational discourse, I absolutely agree with you here (though I’m not sure how much validation you might get from this comment, if any).
As is the case with any source of information (outside or inside LW), it is extremely important to doubt and question its validity, and I think that this is not intuitive, and rather hard for most people. Your guidelines helped solidify some thoughts that I previously had about better communication (truth seeking), while giving me insights on things I was probably doing wrong.
As far as an introductory course goes, this post is excellent. I do think that it could be made simpler, in the sense that newcomers might not be familiar with a majority of the terms presented (I myself had to stop several times to research on them), but that, is in a way, an appropriate introduction to the hardships of rationality (I learned a lot).
Newcomers should all strive to make individual modifications, but only after they grasp what the intentions behind the guideline.