Why do you have this position? (i.e., that comments aren’t about impact).
Because naïvely optimizing for impact requires concealing or distorting information that people could have used to make better (more impactful) decisions in ways that can’t realistically be anticipated by writers naïvely optimizing for impact.
Here’s an example from Ben Hoffman’s “The Humility Argument for Honesty”. Suppose my neck hurts (coincidentally, after trying a new workout routine), and after some internet research, I decide I have neck cancer. The impact-oriented approach would call for me to do my best to convince my doctor I have neck cancer, to make sure that I get the chemotherapy I’m sure I need. The honesty-oriented approach would call for me to explain to my doctor the evidence and reasoning for why I think I have neck cancer.
Maybe there’s something to be said for the impact-oriented approach if my self-diagnoses are never wrong. But if there’s a chance I could be wrong, the honesty-oriented approach is much more robust. If I don’t really have neck cancer and describe my actual symptoms, the doctor has a chance to help me discover my mistake.
Is your default model of LWians that most of them have this position?
No. But that’s OK with me, because I don’t regard “other people who use one of the same websites as me” as a generic authority figure.
it still seems like the causal stream here is clearly bad vibes → people complain to harbyka → Said gets in trouble?
Yes, that sounds right. As you’ve gathered, I want to delete the second arrow rather than altering the value of the “vibes” node.
No. But that’s OK with me, because I don’t regard “other people who use one of the same websites as me” as a generic authority figure.
Was definitely not going to make an argument from authority, just trying to understand your world view.
Iirc we’ve touched on four (increasingly strong) standards for truth
Don’t lie
(I won’t be the best at phrasing this) something like “don’t try to make someone believe things for reasons that have nothing to do with why you believe it”
Use only the arguments that convinced you (the one you mentioned here
Make sure the comment accurately reflects your emotional state[1] about the situation.
For me, I endorse #1, and about 80% endorse #2 (you said in an earlier comment that #1 is too weak, and I agree). #3 seems pretty bad to me because the most convincing arguments to me don’t have to be the most convincing arguments the others (and indeed, they’re often not), and the argument that persuaded me initially especially doesn’t need to be good. And #4 seems extremely counter-productive both because it’ll routinely make people angry and because so much of one’s state of mind at any point is determined by irrelevant variables. It seems only slightly less crazy than—and in fact very similar to—the radical honesty stuff. (Only in the most radical interpretation of #4 is like that, but as I said in the footnote, the most radical interpretation is what you used when you applied it to Said’s commenting style, so that’s the one I’m using here.)
Here’s an example from Ben Hoffman’s “The Humility Argument for Honesty” [...]
This is not a useful example though because it doesn’t differentiate between any two points on this 1-4 scale. You don’t even need to agree with #1 to realize that trying to convince the doctor is a bad idea; all you need to do is realize that they’re more competent than you at understanding symptoms. A non-naive purely impact based approach just describes symptoms honestly in this situation.
My sense is that examples that prefer something stronger than #2 will be hard to come up with. (Notably your argument for why a higher standard is better was itself consequentialist.)
Idk, I mean we’ve drifted pretty far off the original topic and we don’t have to talk any more about this if you’re not interested (and also you’ve already been patient in describing your model). I’m just getting this feeling—vibe! -- of “hmm no this doesn’t seem quite right, I don’t think Zack genuinely believed #1-#4 all this time and everything was upstream of that, this position is too extreme and doesn’t really align with the earliest comment about the moderation debate, I think there’s still some misunderstanding here somewhere”, so my instinct is to dig a little deeper to really get your position. Although I could be wrong, too. In any case, like I said, feel free to end the conversation here.
Re-reading this comment again, you said ‘thought’, which maybe I should have criticized because it’s not a thought. How annoyed you are by something isn’t an intellectual position, it’s a feeling. It’s influenced by beliefs about the thing, but also by unrelated things like how you’re feeling about the person you’re talking to (RE what I’ve demonstrated with Said).
Was definitely not going to make an argument from authority, just trying to understand your world view.
Right. Sorry, I think I uncharitably interpreted “Do you think others agree?” as an implied “Who are you to disagree with others?”, but you’ve earned more charity than that. (Or if it’s odd to speak of “earning” charity, say that I unjustly misinterpreted it.)
the argument that persuaded me initially especially doesn’t need to be good
you said ‘thought’, which maybe I should have criticized because it’s not a thought. How annoyed you are by something isn’t an intellectual position, it’s a feeling. It’s influenced by beliefs about the thing, but also by unrelated things
There’s probably a crux somewhere near here. Your formulation of #4 seems bad because, indeed, my emotions shouldn’t be directly relevant to an intellectual discussion of some topic. But I don’t think that gives you license to say, “Ah, if emotions aren’t relevant, therefore no harm is done by rewriting your comments to be nicer,” because, as I’ve said, I think the nicewashing does end up distorting the content. The feelings are downstream of the beliefs and can’t be changed arbitrarily.
It’s influenced by beliefs about the thing, but also by unrelated things like how you’re feeling about the person you’re talking to (RE what I’ve demonstrated with Said).
I want to note that I dispute that you demonstrated this.
Because naïvely optimizing for impact requires concealing or distorting information that people could have used to make better (more impactful) decisions in ways that can’t realistically be anticipated by writers naïvely optimizing for impact.
Here’s an example from Ben Hoffman’s “The Humility Argument for Honesty”. Suppose my neck hurts (coincidentally, after trying a new workout routine), and after some internet research, I decide I have neck cancer. The impact-oriented approach would call for me to do my best to convince my doctor I have neck cancer, to make sure that I get the chemotherapy I’m sure I need. The honesty-oriented approach would call for me to explain to my doctor the evidence and reasoning for why I think I have neck cancer.
Maybe there’s something to be said for the impact-oriented approach if my self-diagnoses are never wrong. But if there’s a chance I could be wrong, the honesty-oriented approach is much more robust. If I don’t really have neck cancer and describe my actual symptoms, the doctor has a chance to help me discover my mistake.
No. But that’s OK with me, because I don’t regard “other people who use one of the same websites as me” as a generic authority figure.
Yes, that sounds right. As you’ve gathered, I want to delete the second arrow rather than altering the value of the “vibes” node.
Was definitely not going to make an argument from authority, just trying to understand your world view.
Iirc we’ve touched on four (increasingly strong) standards for truth
Don’t lie
(I won’t be the best at phrasing this) something like “don’t try to make someone believe things for reasons that have nothing to do with why you believe it”
Use only the arguments that convinced you (the one you mentioned here
Make sure the comment accurately reflects your emotional state[1] about the situation.
For me, I endorse #1, and about 80% endorse #2 (you said in an earlier comment that #1 is too weak, and I agree). #3 seems pretty bad to me because the most convincing arguments to me don’t have to be the most convincing arguments the others (and indeed, they’re often not), and the argument that persuaded me initially especially doesn’t need to be good. And #4 seems extremely counter-productive both because it’ll routinely make people angry and because so much of one’s state of mind at any point is determined by irrelevant variables. It seems only slightly less crazy than—and in fact very similar to—the radical honesty stuff. (Only in the most radical interpretation of #4 is like that, but as I said in the footnote, the most radical interpretation is what you used when you applied it to Said’s commenting style, so that’s the one I’m using here.)
This is not a useful example though because it doesn’t differentiate between any two points on this 1-4 scale. You don’t even need to agree with #1 to realize that trying to convince the doctor is a bad idea; all you need to do is realize that they’re more competent than you at understanding symptoms. A non-naive purely impact based approach just describes symptoms honestly in this situation.
My sense is that examples that prefer something stronger than #2 will be hard to come up with. (Notably your argument for why a higher standard is better was itself consequentialist.)
Idk, I mean we’ve drifted pretty far off the original topic and we don’t have to talk any more about this if you’re not interested (and also you’ve already been patient in describing your model). I’m just getting this feeling—vibe! -- of “hmm no this doesn’t seem quite right, I don’t think Zack genuinely believed #1-#4 all this time and everything was upstream of that, this position is too extreme and doesn’t really align with the earliest comment about the moderation debate, I think there’s still some misunderstanding here somewhere”, so my instinct is to dig a little deeper to really get your position. Although I could be wrong, too. In any case, like I said, feel free to end the conversation here.
Re-reading this comment again, you said ‘thought’, which maybe I should have criticized because it’s not a thought. How annoyed you are by something isn’t an intellectual position, it’s a feeling. It’s influenced by beliefs about the thing, but also by unrelated things like how you’re feeling about the person you’re talking to (RE what I’ve demonstrated with Said).
Right. Sorry, I think I uncharitably interpreted “Do you think others agree?” as an implied “Who are you to disagree with others?”, but you’ve earned more charity than that. (Or if it’s odd to speak of “earning” charity, say that I unjustly misinterpreted it.)
Right. I tried to cover this earlier when I said “(a cleaned-up refinement of) my thought process” (emphasis added). When I wrote about eschewing “line[s] of reasoning other than the one that persuades me”, it’s persuades in the present tense because what matters is the justifactory structure of the belief, not the humdrum causal history.
There’s probably a crux somewhere near here. Your formulation of #4 seems bad because, indeed, my emotions shouldn’t be directly relevant to an intellectual discussion of some topic. But I don’t think that gives you license to say, “Ah, if emotions aren’t relevant, therefore no harm is done by rewriting your comments to be nicer,” because, as I’ve said, I think the nicewashing does end up distorting the content. The feelings are downstream of the beliefs and can’t be changed arbitrarily.
I want to note that I dispute that you demonstrated this.