This confuses me as well, especially since I was a major contributor to “talk here lately about how we need better contrarians” which the OP specifically disagreed with.
Where you and those other fellows disagree are typically on policy questions, where I tend to not have any strong opinions at all. (Thus, “don’t disagree”.) If you will point to a specific example where you and one of those other fellows explicitly disagree on a factual question (or metaethical question if you don’t consider that a subset of factual questions) I will edit my comment.
There’s a comparison in the back of my mind that may be pattern matching to religious behavior too closely: when one talks to some Orthodox Jews, some of them will claim that they believe everything that some set of major historical rabbis said (say Maimonides and Rashi) when one can easily point to issues where those rabbis disagreed. Moreover, they often use examples like Maimonides or Ibn Ezra who had positions that are in fact considered outright heretical by much of Orthodox Judaism today. I’ve seen a similar result with Catholics and their theologians. In both cases, the more educated members of the religion seem less inclined to do so, but even the educated members sometimes make such claims albeit with interesting doublethink to justify how the positions really aren’t contradictory.
It may be in those cases that what may be going on is that saying “I agree with this list of people and have never seen them as wrong” is a statement of tribal affiliation by saying one agrees with various high status people in the tribe. It is possible that something similar is happening in this context. Alternatively, it may just indicate that Grognor hasn’t read that much by you or by some of the other people on the list.
This confuses me since these people are not in agreement on some issues.
This confuses me as well, especially since I was a major contributor to “talk here lately about how we need better contrarians” which the OP specifically disagreed with.
Where you and those other fellows disagree are typically on policy questions, where I tend to not have any strong opinions at all. (Thus, “don’t disagree”.) If you will point to a specific example where you and one of those other fellows explicitly disagree on a factual question (or metaethical question if you don’t consider that a subset of factual questions) I will edit my comment.
Addendum: I agree more with you than Eliezer about what to do, especially re: Some Thoughts and Wanted: Backup Plans.
There’s a comparison in the back of my mind that may be pattern matching to religious behavior too closely: when one talks to some Orthodox Jews, some of them will claim that they believe everything that some set of major historical rabbis said (say Maimonides and Rashi) when one can easily point to issues where those rabbis disagreed. Moreover, they often use examples like Maimonides or Ibn Ezra who had positions that are in fact considered outright heretical by much of Orthodox Judaism today. I’ve seen a similar result with Catholics and their theologians. In both cases, the more educated members of the religion seem less inclined to do so, but even the educated members sometimes make such claims albeit with interesting doublethink to justify how the positions really aren’t contradictory.
It may be in those cases that what may be going on is that saying “I agree with this list of people and have never seen them as wrong” is a statement of tribal affiliation by saying one agrees with various high status people in the tribe. It is possible that something similar is happening in this context. Alternatively, it may just indicate that Grognor hasn’t read that much by you or by some of the other people on the list.
I believe that by “disagree,” Grognor meant to say that he could not refute or disprove anything they’ve ever written.