You say that he quoted bits are misrepresentations, but I checked your writing and they seem like accurate summaries. You should flag that your position has been misrepresented iff that is true. But you haven’t been misrepresented, and I don’t think that you think you’ve been misrepresented.
I think you are muddying the waters on purpose, and making spurious demands on Elizabeth’s time, because you think clarity about what’s going on will make people more likely to eat meat. I believe this because you’ve written things like:
One thing that might be happening here, is that we’re speaking at different simulacra levels
Source comment. I’m not sure how how familiar you are with local usage of the the simulacrum levels phrase/framework, but in my understanding of the term, all but one of the simulacrum levels are flavors of lying. You go on to say:
Now, I understand the benefits of adopting the general adoption of the policy “state transparently the true facts you know, and that other people seem not to know”. Unfortunately, my impression is this community is not yet in a position in which implementing this policy will be viable or generally beneficial for many topics.
The front-page moderation guidelines on LessWrong say “aim to explain, not persuade”. This is already the norm. The norms of LessWrong can be debated, but not in a subthread on someone else’s post on a different topic.
Yes, your quotes show that I believe (and have stated explicitly) that publishing posts like this one is net-negative. That was the topic of our whole conversation. That doesn’t imply that I’m commenting to increase the costs of these publications. I tried to convince Elizabeth that this was net-negative, and she completely ignored those qualms, and that’s epistemically respectable. I am commenting mainly to avoid my name from being associated with some positions that I literally do not hold.
I believe that her summaries are a strong misrepresentation of my views, and explained why in the above comment through object-level references comparing my text to her summaries. If you don’t provide object-level reasons why the things I pointed out in my above comment are wrong, then I can do nothing with this information. (To be clear, I do think the screenshots are fairly central parts of my clarifications, but her summaries misrepresent and directly contradict other parts of them which I had also presented as central and important.)
I do observe that providing these arguments is a time cost for you, or fixing the misrepresentations is a time cost for Elizabeth, etc. So the argument “you are just increasing the costs” will always be available for you to make. And to that the only thing I can say is… I’m not trying to get the post taken down, I’m not talking about any other parts of the post, just the ones that summarize my position.
I believe that her summaries are a strong misrepresentation of my views, and explained why in the above comment through object-level references comparing my text to her summaries.
I’m looking at those quote-response pairs, and just not seeing the mismatch you claim there to be. Consider this one:
The charitable explanation here is that my post focuses on naive veganism, and Soto thinks that’s a made-up problem.
Of course, my position is not as hyperbolic as this.
This only asserts that there’s a mismatch; it provides no actual evidence of one. Next up:
his desired policy of suppressing public discussion of nutrition issues with plant-exclusive diets will prevent us from getting the information to know if problems are widespread
In my original answers I address why this is not the case (private communication serves this purpose more naturally).
Pretty straightforwardly, if the pilot study results had only been sent through private communications, then they wouldn’t have public discussion (ie, public discussion would be suppressed). I myself wouldn’t know about the results. The probability of a larger follow-up study would be greatly reduced. I personally would have less information about how widespread problems are.
This only asserts that there’s a mismatch; it provides no actual evidence of one
I didn’t provide quotes from my text when the mismatch was obvious enough from any read/skim of the text. In this case, for example, even the screenshots of my text included in the post demonstrate that I do think naive transitions to veganism exist. So of course this is more a point about framing, and indeed notice that I already mentioned in another comment that this one example might not constitute a strong misrepresentation, as the other two do (after all, it’s just an hyperbole), although it still gives me worries about biased tone-setting in a vaguer way.
Pretty straightforwardly, if the pilot study results had only been sent through private communications, then they wouldn’t have public discussion (ie, public discussion would be suppressed).
In the text I clearly address why
My proposal is not suppressing public discussion of plant-based nutrition, but constructing some more holistic approach whose shape isn’t solely focused on plant-based diets, or whose tone and framing aren’t like this one (more in my text).
I don’t think it’s true private communications “prevent us from getting the information” in important ways (even if taking into account the social dynamics dimension of things will always, of course, be a further hindrance). And also, I don’t think public communications give us some of the most important information.
I hope it is now clear why I think Elizabeth’s quoted sentence is a misrepresentation, since neither I push for suppressing public discussions of plant-based nutrition (only a certain non-holistic approach to this, more concretely, Elizabeth’s approach), nor I ignored the possible worry that this prevents us from obtaining useful information (on the contrary, I addressed this). Of course we can object-level argue about whether these (my positions) are true (that’s what I was trying to do with Elizabeth, although as stated she didn’t respond to these two further points), but what’s clear is that they are the ones represented in my text.
More generally, I think this is a kind of “community-health combating of symptoms” with many externalities for the epistemic and moral capabilities of our community (and ignoring them by ignoring the social dynamics at play in our community and society seems like wishful thinking, we are not immune to propaganda), and I think different actions will lead to a healthier and more robust community without the same externalities (all of this detailed in my text).
In any event, I will stop engaging now. I just wanted my name not to be associated with those positions in a post that will be read by so many people, but it’s not looking like Elizabeth will fix that, and having my intentions challenged constantly so that I need to explain my each and every mental move is too draining.
I didn’t provide quotes from my text when the mismatch was obvious enough from any read/skim of the text.
It was not obvious to me, although that’s largely because after reading what you’ve written I had difficulty understanding what your position was at all precisely. It also definitely wasn’t obvious to jimrandomh, who wrote that Elizabeth’s summary of your position is accurate. It might be obvious to you, but as written this is a factual statement about the world that is demonstrably false.
My proposal is not suppressing public discussion of plant-based nutrition, but constructing some more holistic approach whose shape isn’t solely focused on plant-based diets, or whose tone and framing aren’t like this one (more in my text).
I’m confused. You say that you don’t want to suppress public discussion of plant-based nutrition, but also that you do want to suppress Elizabeth’s work. I don’t know how we could get something that matches Elizabeth’s level of rigor, accomplishes your goal of a holistic approach, and doesn’t require at least 3 times the work from the author to investigate all other comparable diets to ensure that veganism isn’t singled out. Simplicity is a virtue in this community!
I don’t think it’s true private communications “prevent us from getting the information” in important ways (even if taking into account the social dynamics dimension of things will always, of course, be a further hindrance). And also, I don’t think public communications give us some of the most important information.
This sounds, to me, like you are arguing against public discussions. Then in the next sentence you say you’re not suppressing public discussions. Those are in fact very slightly different things since arguing that something isn’t the best mode of communication is distinct from promoting suppression of that thing, but this seems like a really small deal. You might ask Elizabeth something like “hey, could you change ‘promotes the suppression of x’ with ‘argues strongly that x shouldn’t happen’? It would match my beliefs more precisely.” This seems nitpicky to me, but if it’s important to you it seems like the sort of thing Elizabeth Elizabeth might go for. It also wouldn’t involve asking her to either delete a bunch of her work or make another guess at what you actually mean.
In any event, I will stop engaging now.
Completely reasonable, don’t feel compelled to respond.
You say that he quoted bits are misrepresentations, but I checked your writing and they seem like accurate summaries. You should flag that your position has been misrepresented iff that is true. But you haven’t been misrepresented, and I don’t think that you think you’ve been misrepresented.
I think you are muddying the waters on purpose, and making spurious demands on Elizabeth’s time, because you think clarity about what’s going on will make people more likely to eat meat. I believe this because you’ve written things like:
Source comment. I’m not sure how how familiar you are with local usage of the the simulacrum levels phrase/framework, but in my understanding of the term, all but one of the simulacrum levels are flavors of lying. You go on to say:
The front-page moderation guidelines on LessWrong say “aim to explain, not persuade”. This is already the norm. The norms of LessWrong can be debated, but not in a subthread on someone else’s post on a different topic.
Yes, your quotes show that I believe (and have stated explicitly) that publishing posts like this one is net-negative. That was the topic of our whole conversation. That doesn’t imply that I’m commenting to increase the costs of these publications. I tried to convince Elizabeth that this was net-negative, and she completely ignored those qualms, and that’s epistemically respectable. I am commenting mainly to avoid my name from being associated with some positions that I literally do not hold.
I believe that her summaries are a strong misrepresentation of my views, and explained why in the above comment through object-level references comparing my text to her summaries. If you don’t provide object-level reasons why the things I pointed out in my above comment are wrong, then I can do nothing with this information. (To be clear, I do think the screenshots are fairly central parts of my clarifications, but her summaries misrepresent and directly contradict other parts of them which I had also presented as central and important.)
I do observe that providing these arguments is a time cost for you, or fixing the misrepresentations is a time cost for Elizabeth, etc. So the argument “you are just increasing the costs” will always be available for you to make. And to that the only thing I can say is… I’m not trying to get the post taken down, I’m not talking about any other parts of the post, just the ones that summarize my position.
I’m looking at those quote-response pairs, and just not seeing the mismatch you claim there to be. Consider this one:
This only asserts that there’s a mismatch; it provides no actual evidence of one. Next up:
Pretty straightforwardly, if the pilot study results had only been sent through private communications, then they wouldn’t have public discussion (ie, public discussion would be suppressed). I myself wouldn’t know about the results. The probability of a larger follow-up study would be greatly reduced. I personally would have less information about how widespread problems are.
I didn’t provide quotes from my text when the mismatch was obvious enough from any read/skim of the text. In this case, for example, even the screenshots of my text included in the post demonstrate that I do think naive transitions to veganism exist. So of course this is more a point about framing, and indeed notice that I already mentioned in another comment that this one example might not constitute a strong misrepresentation, as the other two do (after all, it’s just an hyperbole), although it still gives me worries about biased tone-setting in a vaguer way.
In the text I clearly address why
My proposal is not suppressing public discussion of plant-based nutrition, but constructing some more holistic approach whose shape isn’t solely focused on plant-based diets, or whose tone and framing aren’t like this one (more in my text).
I don’t think it’s true private communications “prevent us from getting the information” in important ways (even if taking into account the social dynamics dimension of things will always, of course, be a further hindrance). And also, I don’t think public communications give us some of the most important information.
I hope it is now clear why I think Elizabeth’s quoted sentence is a misrepresentation, since neither I push for suppressing public discussions of plant-based nutrition (only a certain non-holistic approach to this, more concretely, Elizabeth’s approach), nor I ignored the possible worry that this prevents us from obtaining useful information (on the contrary, I addressed this). Of course we can object-level argue about whether these (my positions) are true (that’s what I was trying to do with Elizabeth, although as stated she didn’t respond to these two further points), but what’s clear is that they are the ones represented in my text.
More generally, I think this is a kind of “community-health combating of symptoms” with many externalities for the epistemic and moral capabilities of our community (and ignoring them by ignoring the social dynamics at play in our community and society seems like wishful thinking, we are not immune to propaganda), and I think different actions will lead to a healthier and more robust community without the same externalities (all of this detailed in my text).
In any event, I will stop engaging now. I just wanted my name not to be associated with those positions in a post that will be read by so many people, but it’s not looking like Elizabeth will fix that, and having my intentions challenged constantly so that I need to explain my each and every mental move is too draining.
It was not obvious to me, although that’s largely because after reading what you’ve written I had difficulty understanding what your position was
at allprecisely. It also definitely wasn’t obvious to jimrandomh, who wrote that Elizabeth’s summary of your position is accurate. It might be obvious to you, but as written this is a factual statement about the world that is demonstrably false.I’m confused. You say that you don’t want to suppress public discussion of plant-based nutrition, but also that you do want to suppress Elizabeth’s work. I don’t know how we could get something that matches Elizabeth’s level of rigor, accomplishes your goal of a holistic approach, and doesn’t require at least 3 times the work from the author to investigate all other comparable diets to ensure that veganism isn’t singled out. Simplicity is a virtue in this community!
This sounds, to me, like you are arguing against public discussions. Then in the next sentence you say you’re not suppressing public discussions. Those are in fact very slightly different things since arguing that something isn’t the best mode of communication is distinct from promoting suppression of that thing, but this seems like a really small deal. You might ask Elizabeth something like “hey, could you change ‘promotes the suppression of x’ with ‘argues strongly that x shouldn’t happen’? It would match my beliefs more precisely.” This seems nitpicky to me, but if it’s important to you it seems like the sort of thing Elizabeth Elizabeth might go for. It also wouldn’t involve asking her to either delete a bunch of her work or make another guess at what you actually mean.
Completely reasonable, don’t feel compelled to respond.