I mean, if you’d like to talk about the object level point of “was the criticism of Eliezer actually true”
I’m not particularly interested in that. It just seemed to me that the example was the point of the article and the meta-stuff was there only to be a support for it.
I mean, people in class (d) are straightforwardly committing what one might call the Sneer Fallacy. Sneering is their bottom line, and it’s even easier to sneer than to make an argument. To adapt C.S. Lewis, it is hard to make an argument, but effortless to pretend that an argument has been made. A similar sentiment is expressed in the catchphrase “haters gonna hate”.
But you skip over that and go straight to a meta-fallacy of misidentifying someone as committing Sneer. This seems too small a target to be worth the attention of a post. Eliezer, on the other hand, is a big target. Therefore Eliezer, and not Sneer Fallacy Fallacy, is the real subject.
Yes, I wrote this article because Eliezer very publicly committed the typical sneering fallacy. But I’m not trying to character-assassinate Eliezer. I’m trying to identify a poisonous sort of reasoning, and indicate that everyone does it, even people that spends years of their life writing about how to be more rational.
I think Eliezer is pretty cool. I aso don’t think he’s immune from criticism, nor do I think he’s an inappropriate target of this sort of post.
I think Eliezer is pretty cool. I aso don’t think he’s immune from criticism, nor do I think he’s an inappropriate target of this sort of post.
The problem is that there is no way for anyone to check your claims about the cited thread without closely reading a large amount of contentious discussion of HPMOR and all the parts of HPMOR being talked about, in order to work out who is being wrong on the Internet. Whoever is going to do that?
Your dedication to the cause of discerning who has rightly discerned who has rightly discerned errors in HPMOR greatly exceeds mine. I shall leave it there.
I’m not particularly interested in that. It just seemed to me that the example was the point of the article and the meta-stuff was there only to be a support for it.
I mean, people in class (d) are straightforwardly committing what one might call the Sneer Fallacy. Sneering is their bottom line, and it’s even easier to sneer than to make an argument. To adapt C.S. Lewis, it is hard to make an argument, but effortless to pretend that an argument has been made. A similar sentiment is expressed in the catchphrase “haters gonna hate”.
But you skip over that and go straight to a meta-fallacy of misidentifying someone as committing Sneer. This seems too small a target to be worth the attention of a post. Eliezer, on the other hand, is a big target. Therefore Eliezer, and not Sneer Fallacy Fallacy, is the real subject.
Yes, I wrote this article because Eliezer very publicly committed the typical sneering fallacy. But I’m not trying to character-assassinate Eliezer. I’m trying to identify a poisonous sort of reasoning, and indicate that everyone does it, even people that spends years of their life writing about how to be more rational.
I think Eliezer is pretty cool. I aso don’t think he’s immune from criticism, nor do I think he’s an inappropriate target of this sort of post.
The problem is that there is no way for anyone to check your claims about the cited thread without closely reading a large amount of contentious discussion of HPMOR and all the parts of HPMOR being talked about, in order to work out who is being wrong on the Internet. Whoever is going to do that?
I never said that determining the sincerity of criticism would be easy. I can step through the argument with links, I’d you’d like!
Your dedication to the cause of discerning who has rightly discerned who has rightly discerned errors in HPMOR greatly exceeds mine. I shall leave it there.
Haha fair enough!