this is a very clear example of people talking past one another. Everybody else is talking a lot and not checking in at all to see if Cade Metz understands, agrees, or is comfortable. They are mad at him for saying “got it” as a conversational tic when he hasn’t got it, but they aren’t actually willing to stay on his wavelength and go at his pace until they can be sure that he does get it! it’s not clear what Metz’s deal is from this transcript because he can’t get a word in edgewise; it’s just clear that he’s not engaged, that there’s no “click.”
for people who want to avoid this failure mode: you’d need to try a.) talking less and letting him talk, and b.) do trial and error with concepts until you find an idea adjacent to, or upstream of, the point you’re trying to make that your interlocutor understands and agrees with. Something that from his perspective is a familiar truth. Talk about the familiar truth long enough to establish rapport, and only then move on to a more specific point that is likely new to him. Then figure out how he relates to that claim (confusion? disagreement? indifference? discomfort? or is he fully bought in/on board?)
note that assent, as a mental state and social behavior, is not exactly the same thing as whether the person would check the “true” box over the “false” box in a forced choice. People will be reluctant to give their assent if they think something is “technically” true but “not the point” or not a good thing to focus on. They will also be reluctant to give their assent if they are too uncomfortable with the idea to engage with it, even if they don’t necessarily disagree in an objective sense.
In a conversation, it’s worth distinguishing not only between “agreement” (thinks it’s basically true), “disagreement” (thinks it’s basically false), and “uncertainty” (not very confident either way), but also confusion (doesn’t know what it is), pointed indifference (thinks it’s a mistake to focus on it; basically the “shrug” or “well anyways” reaction), disagreement with some prior frame/premise (thinks it’s meaningless/incoherent/ill-defined), and discomfort (finds it aversive to think about).
I think Metz was *clearly* spending most of the conversation in a state of {disagreement, confusion, pointed indifference, discomfort} but we can’t tell which because everybody was ignoring his reactions!
It’s also clear that the use of AI tools isn’t helping; they keep interrupting to show what the AI says and Metz isn’t engaging with that either. it seems like it would be helpful if there were a live transcript and some kind of real-time auto-generated analysis, so that they wouldn’t have to disrupt the flow of conversation; but also if they started with a slower onboarding process of like “here is the app, here’s how we’re going to do things, see how it works?”
links 7/6/26: https://roamresearch.com/#/app/srcpublic/page/07-06-2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems guy who sued tech companies repeatedly for violations of EU privacy rights
https://archiveofourown.org/works/84111696 fun Harry Potter fic, in the form of a Reddit AITA thread
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MNRZL69FWkjNABd3T/conversation-among-cade-metz-michael-vassar-jessica-taylor
this is a very clear example of people talking past one another. Everybody else is talking a lot and not checking in at all to see if Cade Metz understands, agrees, or is comfortable. They are mad at him for saying “got it” as a conversational tic when he hasn’t got it, but they aren’t actually willing to stay on his wavelength and go at his pace until they can be sure that he does get it! it’s not clear what Metz’s deal is from this transcript because he can’t get a word in edgewise; it’s just clear that he’s not engaged, that there’s no “click.”
for people who want to avoid this failure mode: you’d need to try a.) talking less and letting him talk, and b.) do trial and error with concepts until you find an idea adjacent to, or upstream of, the point you’re trying to make that your interlocutor understands and agrees with. Something that from his perspective is a familiar truth. Talk about the familiar truth long enough to establish rapport, and only then move on to a more specific point that is likely new to him. Then figure out how he relates to that claim (confusion? disagreement? indifference? discomfort? or is he fully bought in/on board?)
note that assent, as a mental state and social behavior, is not exactly the same thing as whether the person would check the “true” box over the “false” box in a forced choice. People will be reluctant to give their assent if they think something is “technically” true but “not the point” or not a good thing to focus on. They will also be reluctant to give their assent if they are too uncomfortable with the idea to engage with it, even if they don’t necessarily disagree in an objective sense.
In a conversation, it’s worth distinguishing not only between “agreement” (thinks it’s basically true), “disagreement” (thinks it’s basically false), and “uncertainty” (not very confident either way), but also confusion (doesn’t know what it is), pointed indifference (thinks it’s a mistake to focus on it; basically the “shrug” or “well anyways” reaction), disagreement with some prior frame/premise (thinks it’s meaningless/incoherent/ill-defined), and discomfort (finds it aversive to think about).
I think Metz was *clearly* spending most of the conversation in a state of {disagreement, confusion, pointed indifference, discomfort} but we can’t tell which because everybody was ignoring his reactions!
It’s also clear that the use of AI tools isn’t helping; they keep interrupting to show what the AI says and Metz isn’t engaging with that either. it seems like it would be helpful if there were a live transcript and some kind of real-time auto-generated analysis, so that they wouldn’t have to disrupt the flow of conversation; but also if they started with a slower onboarding process of like “here is the app, here’s how we’re going to do things, see how it works?”