I have been saying top-level contributions from the start. The very first comment I made in this discussion made no mention of either posts or comments. You disingenuously reframed my argument and I made the mistake of borrowing your terms instead of insisting on mine.
However, perhaps those were merely slips, or you replied quickly and didn’t write what you meant to write, etc.; fine, these things happen.
Yes, you foisted a distinction on me that I did not make, and I slipped up in accepting the reframing of my argument. I should have been more suspicious of your antics from the outset.
I expressed puzzlement
Not quite what you expressed.
Do you… agree? Disagree?
I haven’t looked into it, because as I’ve already made quite clear, it is flat out not relevant to the point I am making.
If you agree, then it’s not clear to me what your initial point even was. Remember, all of this is in the context of a reply to a post which contained the following text:
But that text was itself written in the context of prior history between Duncan Sabien and another member. You know this, because you are that other member. Zack was critiquing Duncan’s viewpoint, and I was defending it. Both I and Zack were referencing Duncan’s viewpoint when we referred to top-level contributions. I grant that Duncan did also refer explicitly to posts, but that was for convenience and not actually essential to his argument, and his post was quite clearly an essay, not a logical proof, so it really shouldn’t read “autistically” (for lack of a better word)
Obviously, only you know what you meant to say. But I really don’t think that I can be accused of putting words in your mouth. I think that what you have written is genuinely, deeply unclear, and apparently contradictory. Perhaps now would be a good time to clarify just what your position is.
My position is that there is a type of person conventionally known as a subversive, who portray themselves as crusaders of the truth or justice or some such, but who are clearly nothing of the sort, and who are deeply corrosive to civility, good faith interactions, high-trust communities, etc.
They convince themselves that they are insightful critics, but their analyses show persistent biases that manifest as epistemic inconsistencies. They are often driven by a visceral need to always be the smartest person in the room, or at any rate to show off their brains at others’ expense, or their virtue at others’ expense (bible thumpers are another manifestation of this personality type, as are hippies).
They do sometimes argue in good faith, but even when they are being intensely eristic, they think they are still in good faith, because they take deontological view of good faith, where it can be reduced to following a bunch of rules, like, “if I don’t straw man the other person, don’t poison the well, don’t engage in ad hominems, etc., then I am in good faith”. It does not however take a particularly firm grasp of psychology to realize that there is an affective dimension to good faith, and that while it might theoretically be possible to be in good faith while also being intensely standoffish, it pretty much never happens.
Moreover, when they are in this eristic mood, they almost always make the interaction as unpleasant for the other person as they possibly can without making it too obvious what they are doing. Everything that can be weaponized will be weaponized, the tone will be as full of hidden venom as possible, and almost every sentence is goal-oriented towards making the other person lose face. And the other person, unless exceptionally skilled in dealing with these people, has little choice but either let himself be humiliated, or respond in kind.
Outside of subversive spheres, this pattern of behaviour tends to be met with punishment of some sort, but this is deemed unacceptable in subversive spheres, whose social norms are goal-oriented towards enabling exactly this pattern of behaviour, making it especially difficult to deal with. Incidentally, this same dynamic is what brought down the monarchies of Europe, since they could not simply crack down on subversion without being deemed tyrannical.
Fyodor Dostoevsky has written more about this than probably anybody else ever has. I used to be much more fluent in dealing with this dynamic, but that can only come at the cost of assimilating to it. Instead I’ve been distancing myself from it, which has made me less and less fluent in dealing with subversives. I will probably deactivate my LessWrong account one of these days.
So basically my position is that decent contributors shouldn’t have to deal with subversives.
The very first comment I made in this discussion made no mention of either posts or comments.
Sorry, but this is unambiguously false. Indeed, I quoted you, in the comment to which you are responding:
But it’s actually even weirder than that—in your initial comment, you also wrote:
If people who never write top-level posts proceed to engage in snark and smugness towards people who do, that’s a problem
… which is indeed talking about “posts”, not just “top-level contributions” which may or may not be posts.
Anyhow:
If you agree, then it’s not clear to me what your initial point even was. Remember, all of this is in the context of a reply to a post which contained the following text:
But that text was itself written in the context of prior history between Duncan Sabien and another member. You know this, because you *are *that other member. Zack was critiquing Duncan’s viewpoint, and I was defending it. Both I and Zack were referencing Duncan’s viewpoint when we referred to top-level contributions. I grant that Duncan did also refer explicitly to posts
So the OP was about posts vs. comments, and it was written in the context of something else which was also about posts vs. comments, and your own initial comment mentioned posts…
… and yet it’s weird and somehow blameworthy for me to think that we’re talking about posts vs. comments?
My position is …
… and what does any of that have to do with the OP?
So the OP was about posts vs. comments, and it was written in the context of something else which was also about posts vs. comments, and your own initial comment mentioned posts…
No, that was literally never the salient point. Duncan Sabien’s post was literally called “Killing Socrates” and was drawing analogies to the sophists vs the Socratics. That should be enough to show you that the post vs. comment distinction is not the salient issue.
Yes, Duncan Sabien did map it to posts versus comments, but that is because that distinction — far from being an arbitrary feature of this kind of forum — is intended precisely to accommodate two different modes of engagement. The correlation between the mode of engagement and the medium (posts vs comments) may not be perfect, or even all that strong, but if so, by the same principle, Duncan’s mapping of the two modes of engagement to posts versus comments also isn’t all that strong. The salient point was always about the modes of engagement, hence why it is even possible to draw an analogy to Socrates. It was always about contributors versus disparagers.
And it is not like this is some subtle argument that is difficult to follow, so yes, your repeated failure to grasp what is being talked about is blameworthy.
… and what does any of that have to do with the OP?
You are a subversive and Duncan Sabien was a decent contributor who should never have had to put up with you. That’s what.
I have been saying top-level contributions from the start. The very first comment I made in this discussion made no mention of either posts or comments. You disingenuously reframed my argument and I made the mistake of borrowing your terms instead of insisting on mine.
Yes, you foisted a distinction on me that I did not make, and I slipped up in accepting the reframing of my argument. I should have been more suspicious of your antics from the outset.
Not quite what you expressed.
I haven’t looked into it, because as I’ve already made quite clear, it is flat out not relevant to the point I am making.
But that text was itself written in the context of prior history between Duncan Sabien and another member. You know this, because you are that other member. Zack was critiquing Duncan’s viewpoint, and I was defending it. Both I and Zack were referencing Duncan’s viewpoint when we referred to top-level contributions. I grant that Duncan did also refer explicitly to posts, but that was for convenience and not actually essential to his argument, and his post was quite clearly an essay, not a logical proof, so it really shouldn’t read “autistically” (for lack of a better word)
My position is that there is a type of person conventionally known as a subversive, who portray themselves as crusaders of the truth or justice or some such, but who are clearly nothing of the sort, and who are deeply corrosive to civility, good faith interactions, high-trust communities, etc.
They convince themselves that they are insightful critics, but their analyses show persistent biases that manifest as epistemic inconsistencies. They are often driven by a visceral need to always be the smartest person in the room, or at any rate to show off their brains at others’ expense, or their virtue at others’ expense (bible thumpers are another manifestation of this personality type, as are hippies).
They do sometimes argue in good faith, but even when they are being intensely eristic, they think they are still in good faith, because they take deontological view of good faith, where it can be reduced to following a bunch of rules, like, “if I don’t straw man the other person, don’t poison the well, don’t engage in ad hominems, etc., then I am in good faith”. It does not however take a particularly firm grasp of psychology to realize that there is an affective dimension to good faith, and that while it might theoretically be possible to be in good faith while also being intensely standoffish, it pretty much never happens.
Moreover, when they are in this eristic mood, they almost always make the interaction as unpleasant for the other person as they possibly can without making it too obvious what they are doing. Everything that can be weaponized will be weaponized, the tone will be as full of hidden venom as possible, and almost every sentence is goal-oriented towards making the other person lose face. And the other person, unless exceptionally skilled in dealing with these people, has little choice but either let himself be humiliated, or respond in kind.
Outside of subversive spheres, this pattern of behaviour tends to be met with punishment of some sort, but this is deemed unacceptable in subversive spheres, whose social norms are goal-oriented towards enabling exactly this pattern of behaviour, making it especially difficult to deal with. Incidentally, this same dynamic is what brought down the monarchies of Europe, since they could not simply crack down on subversion without being deemed tyrannical.
Fyodor Dostoevsky has written more about this than probably anybody else ever has. I used to be much more fluent in dealing with this dynamic, but that can only come at the cost of assimilating to it. Instead I’ve been distancing myself from it, which has made me less and less fluent in dealing with subversives. I will probably deactivate my LessWrong account one of these days.
So basically my position is that decent contributors shouldn’t have to deal with subversives.
Sorry, but this is unambiguously false. Indeed, I quoted you, in the comment to which you are responding:
Anyhow:
So the OP was about posts vs. comments, and it was written in the context of something else which was also about posts vs. comments, and your own initial comment mentioned posts…
… and yet it’s weird and somehow blameworthy for me to think that we’re talking about posts vs. comments?
… and what does any of that have to do with the OP?
No, that was literally never the salient point. Duncan Sabien’s post was literally called “Killing Socrates” and was drawing analogies to the sophists vs the Socratics. That should be enough to show you that the post vs. comment distinction is not the salient issue.
Yes, Duncan Sabien did map it to posts versus comments, but that is because that distinction — far from being an arbitrary feature of this kind of forum — is intended precisely to accommodate two different modes of engagement. The correlation between the mode of engagement and the medium (posts vs comments) may not be perfect, or even all that strong, but if so, by the same principle, Duncan’s mapping of the two modes of engagement to posts versus comments also isn’t all that strong. The salient point was always about the modes of engagement, hence why it is even possible to draw an analogy to Socrates. It was always about contributors versus disparagers.
And it is not like this is some subtle argument that is difficult to follow, so yes, your repeated failure to grasp what is being talked about is blameworthy.
You are a subversive and Duncan Sabien was a decent contributor who should never have had to put up with you. That’s what.