So, here’s a general comment, not specific to the topic in the OP (I bring this up as a riff on your comment).
I sometimes have conversations like this:
Person:[makes some cryptic or strange-sounding claim]
Me: Wait… what? What do you mean by that? Explain what you’re saying, exactly.
Person: Ugh, it’s too hard to prove what I’m saying, I don’t have enough evidence to prove it to you, and I bet you’ll pick apart my evidence, and you won’t be convinced, even though it’s true, but I don’t even want to say anything more because what’s the point since you won’t believe me anyway …
Me, interrupting: Wait, stop. All I’m asking is, what are you saying? Forget proving it, forget evidence, forget convincing me—I just want to understand what your claim is!
I find such responses extremely frustrating, and, to be honest, somewhat rude. I strive to avoid them, for my part.
Just today, I had a conversation with a friend, toward the end of which I ended up making a surprising—to him—claim. I made very sure to state my claim clearly and unambiguously—clearly enough that my friend could understand exactly what I was saying, and could be quite sure that my claim sounded totally absurd, weird, counterintuitive, and more or less obviously wrong. I agreed with him that my claim sounded exactly that weird, acknowledged that it required serious justification, but demurred on providing it at the time (because I had to leave, and also because I wanted to formulate my thoughts properly before explaining the reasons behind what I said). I think that is what respectful conversation requires.
Or, as Eliezer put it—whatever it is you’re claiming, say it loud. If you can’t, at this time, defend your claim, fine. Say that, and make it clear. But demurring when asked to explain what you are saying ought to be beneath the honor of anyone aspiring to the name of “rationalist”.
(to be upfront, I may not be interested in explaining this further, due to limited time and investment + it seeming like a large tangent to this thread)
Especially in face-to-face communications whether or not someone takes a question for clarification as an attack or whether they don’t depends on the emotional undercurrent.
If you ask from the point of curiosity about what the other person means, few people take that as an attack. If you ask from the point of being angry because they aren’t clear many people do.
This seems to imply that you think the current amount of “social capital” that people are being “awarded” is inaccurate (in the sense of being incommensurate with their achievements, or… something like that?). Is this, indeed, what you meant?
This is the “what are you saying” part. I directly answered this: yes, I’m saying that social capital awards are horribly miscalibrated.
And if so, on what do you base this?
This isn’t a “what are you saying” question, and is the thing I was addressing when I said I didn’t want to engage.
I… wasn’t responding to your comment, with any of that.
I mean, I (a) posted in reply to Hypothesis, not to you, and (b) made it clear in the first line of my reply that it was a general comment, riffing off what he said, not something specific to what’s being discussed here.
I didn’t think I needed more specific disclaimers than that? It seems like you’re taking my comments personally, when they’re not intended that way at all; I’m not sure why that is.
So, here’s a general comment, not specific to the topic in the OP (I bring this up as a riff on your comment).
I sometimes have conversations like this:
Person: [makes some cryptic or strange-sounding claim]
Me: Wait… what? What do you mean by that? Explain what you’re saying, exactly.
Person: Ugh, it’s too hard to prove what I’m saying, I don’t have enough evidence to prove it to you, and I bet you’ll pick apart my evidence, and you won’t be convinced, even though it’s true, but I don’t even want to say anything more because what’s the point since you won’t believe me anyway …
Me, interrupting: Wait, stop. All I’m asking is, what are you saying? Forget proving it, forget evidence, forget convincing me—I just want to understand what your claim is!
I find such responses extremely frustrating, and, to be honest, somewhat rude. I strive to avoid them, for my part.
Just today, I had a conversation with a friend, toward the end of which I ended up making a surprising—to him—claim. I made very sure to state my claim clearly and unambiguously—clearly enough that my friend could understand exactly what I was saying, and could be quite sure that my claim sounded totally absurd, weird, counterintuitive, and more or less obviously wrong. I agreed with him that my claim sounded exactly that weird, acknowledged that it required serious justification, but demurred on providing it at the time (because I had to leave, and also because I wanted to formulate my thoughts properly before explaining the reasons behind what I said). I think that is what respectful conversation requires.
Or, as Eliezer put it—whatever it is you’re claiming, say it loud. If you can’t, at this time, defend your claim, fine. Say that, and make it clear. But demurring when asked to explain what you are saying ought to be beneath the honor of anyone aspiring to the name of “rationalist”.
My consistent experience of your comments is one of people giving [what I believe to be, believing that I understand what they’re saying] the actual best explanations they can, and you not understanding things that I believe to be comprehensible and continuing to ask for explanations and evidence that, on their model, they shouldn’t necessarily be able to provide.
(to be upfront, I may not be interested in explaining this further, due to limited time and investment + it seeming like a large tangent to this thread)
I never said that I was talking about conversations here on LessWrong. I do interact with people—even “rationalists”!—elsewhere.
Especially in face-to-face communications whether or not someone takes a question for clarification as an attack or whether they don’t depends on the emotional undercurrent.
If you ask from the point of curiosity about what the other person means, few people take that as an attack. If you ask from the point of being angry because they aren’t clear many people do.
Uh, what?
This is the “what are you saying” part. I directly answered this: yes, I’m saying that social capital awards are horribly miscalibrated.
This isn’t a “what are you saying” question, and is the thing I was addressing when I said I didn’t want to engage.
I… wasn’t responding to your comment, with any of that.
I mean, I (a) posted in reply to Hypothesis, not to you, and (b) made it clear in the first line of my reply that it was a general comment, riffing off what he said, not something specific to what’s being discussed here.
I didn’t think I needed more specific disclaimers than that? It seems like you’re taking my comments personally, when they’re not intended that way at all; I’m not sure why that is.