I think that you are typical-minding very strongly. It seems as if you’re not capable of imagining that someone can fail to perceive the sort of thing we’re discussing as being some sort of social attack. This is causing you to both totally misunderstand my own perspective, and to have a mistaken belief about how “almost everyone on LessWrong” thinks. (I don’t know if you just haven’t spent much time around people of a certain mental make-up, or what.)
I think I’m capable of imagining that someone can fail to perceive this sort of thing. I know this because I did imagine this—when you told me you don’t care, and every comment I had read from you was in the same style, I (perhaps naively) just assumed that you’re telling the truth.
But then you wrote this reply to me, which was significantly friendlier than any other post you’ve written to me. This came directly after I said this
BTW I think asking me what I mean by vibes is completely reasonable. Someone strong-downvoted your comment I guess because it sounds pedantic but I don’t agree with this, I don’t think this is a case where the concept so obvious that you shouldn’t ask for a definition. (I strong-upvoted back to 0.)
And then also your latest comment (the one I’m replying to) is the least friendly, except for the final paragraph, which is friendly again. So, I when I said did something unusually nice,[1] you were being nice in response. When I was the most rude, in my previous comment, you were the most rude back. Your other comments in this thread that stand out as more nice are those in response to Ben Pace rather than habryka.
… so in summary, you’re obviously just navigating social vibes like a normal person. I was willing to take your words that you’re immune, but not if you’re demonstrating otherwise! (A fun heuristic is just to look at {number of !}/{post length}. There are exceptions, but most of the time, !s soften the vibe.)
clarifying that this was not an intended trap; I just genuinely don’t get why the particular comment asking me to define vibes should get downvoted. (Although I did deliberately not explain why I said I don’t believe you; I wanted to see if you’d ask or just jump to a conlucusion.)
Frankly, I think that you’re mistaking noise for signal here. There’s no “niceness” or “rudeness” going on in these comments, there are just various straightforwardly appropriate responses to various statements / claims / comments / etc.
But that’s just the thing: you shouldn’t be thinking of object-level discussions on LW as “social situations” which you need to “navigate”. If that’s how you’re approaching things, then of course you’re going to have all of these reactions—and you’ve doomed the whole enterprise right from the start! You’re operating on too high a simulacrum level. No useful intellectual work will get done that way.
There’s just no need for this sort of “higher simulacrum level” stuff. Is my comment “nice”? Is it “rude”? No, it’s just saying what I think is true and relevant. If you stop trying to detect “niceness” and “rudeness” in my comments, it’ll be simpler for everyone involved. That’s the benefit of abjuring “vibes”: we can get down to the important stuff.
… on the other hand, maybe everything I just said in the above paragraph is totally wrong, and you should instead try much harder to detect “vibes”:
I just genuinely don’t get why the particular comment asking me to define vibes should get downvoted
Do you mean this literally? Because that’s intensely ironic, if so! You see, it’s extremely obvious to me why that comment got downvoted. If I get it, and you don’t, then… what does that say about our respective ability to understand “vibes”, to “navigate social situations”, and generally to understand what’s going on in discussions like this? (No, really—what does it say about those things? That’s not a rhetorical question, and I absolutely cannot predict what your response is going to be.)
Do you mean this literally? Because that’s intensely ironic, if so! You see, it’s extremely obvious to me why that comment got downvoted.
I didn’t say I don’t get why it happened; I said, I don’t get why it should happen, meaning I don’t see a reason I agree with, I think the comment is fine. (And if it matters, I never thought about what I think would have happened or why with this comment, so I neither made a true nor a false prediction.)
I think I’m capable of imagining that someone can fail to perceive this sort of thing. I know this because I did imagine this—when you told me you don’t care, and every comment I had read from you was in the same style, I (perhaps naively) just assumed that you’re telling the truth.
But then you wrote this reply to me, which was significantly friendlier than any other post you’ve written to me. This came directly after I said this
And then also your latest comment (the one I’m replying to) is the least friendly, except for the final paragraph, which is friendly again. So, I when I said did something unusually nice,[1] you were being nice in response. When I was the most rude, in my previous comment, you were the most rude back. Your other comments in this thread that stand out as more nice are those in response to Ben Pace rather than habryka.
… so in summary, you’re obviously just navigating social vibes like a normal person. I was willing to take your words that you’re immune, but not if you’re demonstrating otherwise! (A fun heuristic is just to look at {number of !}/{post length}. There are exceptions, but most of the time, !s soften the vibe.)
clarifying that this was not an intended trap; I just genuinely don’t get why the particular comment asking me to define vibes should get downvoted. (Although I did deliberately not explain why I said I don’t believe you; I wanted to see if you’d ask or just jump to a conlucusion.)
Frankly, I think that you’re mistaking noise for signal here. There’s no “niceness” or “rudeness” going on in these comments, there are just various straightforwardly appropriate responses to various statements / claims / comments / etc.
This is related to what I meant when I wrote:
There’s just no need for this sort of “higher simulacrum level” stuff. Is my comment “nice”? Is it “rude”? No, it’s just saying what I think is true and relevant. If you stop trying to detect “niceness” and “rudeness” in my comments, it’ll be simpler for everyone involved. That’s the benefit of abjuring “vibes”: we can get down to the important stuff.
… on the other hand, maybe everything I just said in the above paragraph is totally wrong, and you should instead try much harder to detect “vibes”:
Do you mean this literally? Because that’s intensely ironic, if so! You see, it’s extremely obvious to me why that comment got downvoted. If I get it, and you don’t, then… what does that say about our respective ability to understand “vibes”, to “navigate social situations”, and generally to understand what’s going on in discussions like this? (No, really—what does it say about those things? That’s not a rhetorical question, and I absolutely cannot predict what your response is going to be.)
I didn’t say I don’t get why it happened; I said, I don’t get why it should happen, meaning I don’t see a reason I agree with, I think the comment is fine. (And if it matters, I never thought about what I think would have happened or why with this comment, so I neither made a true nor a false prediction.)
I see… well, fair enough, I guess. (I find the original wording confusing, FYI, but your explanation does clear things up.)