Try hard to name the positive things that different groups believe in rather than simply what they don’t like.
Try hard to name their strengths than simply what (others might see as) their flaws.
Default to talk fairly abstractly when possible, to avoid accidentally re-litigating a lot of specific conflicts that aren’t necessary, and avoid making people feel singled out. (This is somewhat in conflict with the virtues of concreteness and precision; not quite sure how to describe the synthesis of these.)
Be very hesitating to reify groups or forces when it’s not necessary. Due to the way human psychology works, it’s very easy to bring into existence a political group or battle that didn’t exist by careless use of words and names. I think the biggest risk is in reifying groups or tribes or conflicts that don’t exist and don’t need to exist. (Link to me writing about this before.)
For instance, if Tom proposes a group norm of always including epistemic statuses at the top of posts, and there’s a conflict about it, there are better and worse ways of naming sides.
“The people who hate Tom” and “The people who like Tom” is worse than “The people for mandatory epistemic statuses” and “The people against mandatory epistemic statuses”.
Also “The people who care about epistemics” and “The people who don’t care about epistemics” is worse relative to “The people who care about epistemics” vs “The people who care about creative freedom in posts” (or whatever captures the actual counterarguments and the values being traded off).
Of course, don’t say false things, these are heuristics to help things stay healthy and counteract humans biases, rather than universal truths.
Some of my instincts are opposite to this. Full agreement with naming the positives in each group/position.
I think abstraction is often the enemy of crux-finding. When people are in far-mode, they tend to ignore the things that make for clear points of disagreement, and just assume that it’s a value difference rather than a belief difference. I think most of the tribal failures to communicate are from the default of talking abstractly.
Agreed that it’s often not necessary to identify or reinforce the group boundaries. Focus on the disagreements, and figure out how to proceed in the world where we don’t all agree on things.
I think the example of epistemic status recommendation is a good one—this isn’t about groups, it’s about a legitimate disagreement in when it’s useful and when it’s wasteful or misleading. It’s useful if it gets debated (and I have to say, I haven’t noticed this debate) to clarify that it’s OK if it’s the poster/commenter choice, and it’s just another tool for communication.
I’m clueless enough, and engineering-mind enough, that hypothetical examples don’t help me understand or solve a problem.
I suspect I should have just stayed out, or asked for a clearer problem description. I don’t really feel tribal-ish in myself or my interactions on the site, so I suspect I’m just not part of the problem nor solution. PLEASE let me know (privately or publically) if this is incorrect.
Some instincts:
Try hard to name the positive things that different groups believe in rather than simply what they don’t like.
Try hard to name their strengths than simply what (others might see as) their flaws.
Default to talk fairly abstractly when possible, to avoid accidentally re-litigating a lot of specific conflicts that aren’t necessary, and avoid making people feel singled out. (This is somewhat in conflict with the virtues of concreteness and precision; not quite sure how to describe the synthesis of these.)
Be very hesitating to reify groups or forces when it’s not necessary. Due to the way human psychology works, it’s very easy to bring into existence a political group or battle that didn’t exist by careless use of words and names. I think the biggest risk is in reifying groups or tribes or conflicts that don’t exist and don’t need to exist. (Link to me writing about this before.)
For instance, if Tom proposes a group norm of always including epistemic statuses at the top of posts, and there’s a conflict about it, there are better and worse ways of naming sides.
“The people who hate Tom” and “The people who like Tom” is worse than “The people for mandatory epistemic statuses” and “The people against mandatory epistemic statuses”.
Also “The people who care about epistemics” and “The people who don’t care about epistemics” is worse relative to “The people who care about epistemics” vs “The people who care about creative freedom in posts” (or whatever captures the actual counterarguments and the values being traded off).
Of course, don’t say false things, these are heuristics to help things stay healthy and counteract humans biases, rather than universal truths.
Some of my instincts are opposite to this. Full agreement with naming the positives in each group/position.
I think abstraction is often the enemy of crux-finding. When people are in far-mode, they tend to ignore the things that make for clear points of disagreement, and just assume that it’s a value difference rather than a belief difference. I think most of the tribal failures to communicate are from the default of talking abstractly.
Agreed that it’s often not necessary to identify or reinforce the group boundaries. Focus on the disagreements, and figure out how to proceed in the world where we don’t all agree on things.
I think the example of epistemic status recommendation is a good one—this isn’t about groups, it’s about a legitimate disagreement in when it’s useful and when it’s wasteful or misleading. It’s useful if it gets debated (and I have to say, I haven’t noticed this debate) to clarify that it’s OK if it’s the poster/commenter choice, and it’s just another tool for communication.
FYI it is a hypothetical example.
I’m clueless enough, and engineering-mind enough, that hypothetical examples don’t help me understand or solve a problem.
I suspect I should have just stayed out, or asked for a clearer problem description. I don’t really feel tribal-ish in myself or my interactions on the site, so I suspect I’m just not part of the problem nor solution. PLEASE let me know (privately or publically) if this is incorrect.
(I think, by ‘positive’, Ben meant “explain positions that the group agrees with” rather than “say some nice things about each group”)