Contributions to Less Wrong generally either add value or subtract value. It’s hard for a user to predict in advance which will be the case. I think Benquo is correct that the average Less Wrong user is excessively worried about subtracting value.
However, the law of equal and opposite advice applies. Just because the average Less Wrong user needs to hear Benquo’s message doesn’t mean you do.
The strategy of making confident though erroneous claims in order to get others to explain things to you is one that demonstrates almost no concern for the possibility that you are subtracting value.
I like reading objections that are friendly, coherent, non-obvious, plausible, interesting. But sometimes I get the impression you are making an objection just for the sake of making an objection, without thinking very hard about whether it’s useful or accurate, and that gets tiresome. Especially since you never make toplevel posts yourself.
If I want to write a meaningful comment explaining something that feels important to me, I usually get a feeling “and now Lumifer will immediately reply with something predictably useless, and that will kill the whole debate”. About half of the time I later feel I was right about this. This discourages me from writing meaningful comments.
On the other hand, when writing Facebook-style comments (more or less like this one, but shorter), I don’t give a fuck about your reaction, because throwing inane stuff at each other is how the game is played.
To me it feels like you are defecting at some kind of Prisonner’s Dilemma we have here, and then the only rational move for me is to also defect, or avoid the game.
It’s not just the kind of the comments you write, but also that you reply to pretty much everything, whether you have something useful to contribute or not. It doesn’t seem like you plan to change this, so… uhm, I actually can’t even downvote you anymore… sigh.
You seem to consider posts much more valuable than comments. Why so?
Because posts containing as little value as your comments would immediately get downvoted.
Okay, that was a bit too aggressive. But your debating style is about attacking other people’s ideas, and exposing as little as possible of your own (obviously, so you can’t be attacked back in the same style). This is only possible because other people keep bringing new ideas. If everyone would switch to your style, it would be like Facebook. So other people are providing value, and you are giving them some negative reinforcement in return. Maybe you believe that this kind of predictable negative reinforcement is actually super valuable. I disagree.
and now Lumifer will immediately reply with something predictably useless, and that will kill the whole debate
Why would it kill the debate? My shadow isn’t that large and that dense that nothing will grow in it. I’ll repeat what I said before: I’m ignorable. If you think my comment is useless, just skip past it.
Or do you think that there’s something poisonous/infectious in my comments so that they create a zone of creep around them?
you are defecting at some kind of Prisonner’s Dilemma we have here
What kind of a Prisoner’s Dilemma do we have here? I’ve noticed that expression tends to be heavily overused to mean THOU SHALL ALWAYS COOPERATE OTHERWISE YOU ARE BAD and I’m not a very cooperative creature. Is there a Prisoner’s Dilemma, technically speaking?
a bit too aggressive
Fails a reality check, too :-P
obviously, so you can’t be attacked back in the same style
You are making the assumption that I’m mostly interested in collecting Internet Debate Points. That is not the case—if I were, I wouldn’t hang around at LW which isn’t a terribly convenient place for such activities. And anyway, a bit upthread I’m being chided for “[t]he strategy of making confident though erroneous claims in order to get others to explain things to you”. So what is it, am I making too few claims or too many?
So other people are providing value, and you are giving them some negative reinforcement in return.
That’s a general-purpose argument against any criticism, isn’t it?
LW’s problem isn’t only that good posts became scarce, it is also that nature abhors vacuum and so shit started to flow in to fill that empty space. If you want any content, that’s easy, but you’d better set up some filters before the place gets filled with “Video using humor to spread rationality” and “This one equation may be the root of intelligence”.
Is this supposed to be yet another “confident though erroneous claim in order to get others to explain things to you”?
You see, I am unable to say when you are playing games and when you are not. I just have a rule of thumb of avoiding debates with people whom I suspect of playing games. I simply don’t enjoy this kind of games.
The problem here is my lack of trust that you are debating in good faith (as opposed to trolling for reaction). Maybe I completely misjugde you. Maybe you are doing something that contributes to such misjudgement.
I am unable to say when you are playing games and when you are not
I don’t see this as a problem :-) Moreover, I think that “playing games or not” is not a binary choice, but rather a position on a continuous scale—I like conversations that operate on multiple levels simultaneously with a certain level of ambiguity.
I just have a rule of thumb of avoiding debates with people whom I suspect of playing games
Sure. I’m not jumping around yelling “Debate me! Debate me!”. If you don’t want to, well, just don’t. Like I’m free to comment on your public postings, you are free to entirely ignore my comments.
my lack of trust
What do you have at stake so that you need a lot of trust?
I think that “playing games or not” is not a binary choice, but rather a position on a continuous scale—I like conversations that operate on multiple levels simultaneously with a certain level of ambiguity.
Partially playing games is basically just playing games, for the same reason that a barrel that is half full of wine and half full of sewage is basically full of sewage.
So you can’t imagine someone being other than (a) completely, 100% dead serious; or (2) obviously joking and not trying to communicate anything but ha-ha funny? No intermediate stages at all?
If someone is half serious and half joking, and it isn’t very obvious which parts are jokes and which are not, that leaves him in a position where he can act as though something is serious up until he gets called on it, at which point he can switch to saying “of course that was bad logic/bad sources/ad hominem/etc., it was just a joke?” So you’re better off acting as though it’s jokes all the time.
Contributions to Less Wrong generally either add value or subtract value. It’s hard for a user to predict in advance which will be the case. I think Benquo is correct that the average Less Wrong user is excessively worried about subtracting value.
However, the law of equal and opposite advice applies. Just because the average Less Wrong user needs to hear Benquo’s message doesn’t mean you do.
The strategy of making confident though erroneous claims in order to get others to explain things to you is one that demonstrates almost no concern for the possibility that you are subtracting value.
I like reading objections that are friendly, coherent, non-obvious, plausible, interesting. But sometimes I get the impression you are making an objection just for the sake of making an objection, without thinking very hard about whether it’s useful or accurate, and that gets tiresome. Especially since you never make toplevel posts yourself.
Adding or subtracting value is at least a three-argument function (what, to whom, in which context) :-)
So don’t dance around so much and say outright whether you think I do. I promise not to faint.
You seem to consider posts much more valuable than comments. Why so? I usually find commentary more interesting and useful than the post itself.
Well, this is how I react to your debating style:
If I want to write a meaningful comment explaining something that feels important to me, I usually get a feeling “and now Lumifer will immediately reply with something predictably useless, and that will kill the whole debate”. About half of the time I later feel I was right about this. This discourages me from writing meaningful comments.
On the other hand, when writing Facebook-style comments (more or less like this one, but shorter), I don’t give a fuck about your reaction, because throwing inane stuff at each other is how the game is played.
To me it feels like you are defecting at some kind of Prisonner’s Dilemma we have here, and then the only rational move for me is to also defect, or avoid the game.
It’s not just the kind of the comments you write, but also that you reply to pretty much everything, whether you have something useful to contribute or not. It doesn’t seem like you plan to change this, so… uhm, I actually can’t even downvote you anymore… sigh.
Because posts containing as little value as your comments would immediately get downvoted.
Okay, that was a bit too aggressive. But your debating style is about attacking other people’s ideas, and exposing as little as possible of your own (obviously, so you can’t be attacked back in the same style). This is only possible because other people keep bringing new ideas. If everyone would switch to your style, it would be like Facebook. So other people are providing value, and you are giving them some negative reinforcement in return. Maybe you believe that this kind of predictable negative reinforcement is actually super valuable. I disagree.
This.
Why would it kill the debate? My shadow isn’t that large and that dense that nothing will grow in it. I’ll repeat what I said before: I’m ignorable. If you think my comment is useless, just skip past it.
Or do you think that there’s something poisonous/infectious in my comments so that they create a zone of creep around them?
What kind of a Prisoner’s Dilemma do we have here? I’ve noticed that expression tends to be heavily overused to mean THOU SHALL ALWAYS COOPERATE OTHERWISE YOU ARE BAD and I’m not a very cooperative creature. Is there a Prisoner’s Dilemma, technically speaking?
Fails a reality check, too :-P
You are making the assumption that I’m mostly interested in collecting Internet Debate Points. That is not the case—if I were, I wouldn’t hang around at LW which isn’t a terribly convenient place for such activities. And anyway, a bit upthread I’m being chided for “[t]he strategy of making confident though erroneous claims in order to get others to explain things to you”. So what is it, am I making too few claims or too many?
That’s a general-purpose argument against any criticism, isn’t it?
LW’s problem isn’t only that good posts became scarce, it is also that nature abhors vacuum and so shit started to flow in to fill that empty space. If you want any content, that’s easy, but you’d better set up some filters before the place gets filled with “Video using humor to spread rationality” and “This one equation may be the root of intelligence”.
Is this supposed to be yet another “confident though erroneous claim in order to get others to explain things to you”?
You see, I am unable to say when you are playing games and when you are not. I just have a rule of thumb of avoiding debates with people whom I suspect of playing games. I simply don’t enjoy this kind of games.
The problem here is my lack of trust that you are debating in good faith (as opposed to trolling for reaction). Maybe I completely misjugde you. Maybe you are doing something that contributes to such misjudgement.
I don’t see this as a problem :-) Moreover, I think that “playing games or not” is not a binary choice, but rather a position on a continuous scale—I like conversations that operate on multiple levels simultaneously with a certain level of ambiguity.
Sure. I’m not jumping around yelling “Debate me! Debate me!”. If you don’t want to, well, just don’t. Like I’m free to comment on your public postings, you are free to entirely ignore my comments.
What do you have at stake so that you need a lot of trust?
Partially playing games is basically just playing games, for the same reason that a barrel that is half full of wine and half full of sewage is basically full of sewage.
So you can’t imagine someone being other than (a) completely, 100% dead serious; or (2) obviously joking and not trying to communicate anything but ha-ha funny? No intermediate stages at all?
If someone is half serious and half joking, and it isn’t very obvious which parts are jokes and which are not, that leaves him in a position where he can act as though something is serious up until he gets called on it, at which point he can switch to saying “of course that was bad logic/bad sources/ad hominem/etc., it was just a joke?” So you’re better off acting as though it’s jokes all the time.