Strongly up-voted because I believe the tone of a comment shouldn’t be as an important consideration as the point being made.
Interesting ideas are good, feedback for the further development should also be considered good.
I still think rationality means thinking rationally.
(And I’ve a couple of big doses of unexplained negative karma on the posts I’ve created and would have much preferred some comment/feedback whatever the tone it took and Christian was one of the few that provided some.)
the tone of a comment shouldn’t be as an important consideration as the point being made.
Tentatively agree, but in this case the point was about a mostly aesthetic (though common) preference for established terminology, which has nothing to do with anything of substance. It’s fair to point out that not everyone cares equally little about written appearances, but it seems uncalled for to frame it in a way as though the author was violating a norm. (If people now want strict academic norms for a community blog that initially was started by Eliezer Yudkowsky of all people, that’s another discussion.)
I still think rationality means thinking rationally.
One feature of that is to notice instances when usually sound heuristics are drifting apart from the actual goal. Some people can’t help but feel increasingly more averse to making posts on here if they frequently encounter feedback that makes them feel as though they did something wrong for sharing their thoughts in a suboptimal fashion. Maybe you’re not high on neuroticism, maybe ChristianKI isn’t high on it, and maybe Vipul isn’t either. But I wouldn’t be surprised if people high on neuroticism are overrepresented among rationalists – maybe just not among the ones who frequently post here (and that’s my point). So just because some people wouldn’t get discouraged by slightly pedantic criticism worded in a judgmental fashion doesn’t mean it’s not discouraging for anyone. And it doesn’t help that you’re implicitly suggesting that people are being less rational if criticism affects them more. If some portion of the population is afraid of spiders, you don’t throw spiders at them and say “being rational is about not being affected by negative emotions.” Okay, bad analogy: Criticism usually correlates with truth seeking; throwing spiders does not. However, I think many of the people who are unusually discouraged by judgmentally-worded criticism are discouraged precisely because they take criticism in general unusually seriously. That’s often a virtue. I think LW culture has drifted toward an equilibrium where some traits that usually correlate with rationality are rewarded too much, and other qualities, which can often be virtuous too (in the right person/combination) are written off as attempts to undermine truth seeking. I think that’s a an example of a common failure mode for communities, where signalling dynamics combine with selection effects created by the signalling until what’s left is a culture that is unhealthily extreme on some dimensions, but few in that culture are aware to notice.
(And I’ve a couple of big doses of unexplained negative karma on the posts I’ve created and would have much preferred some comment/feedback whatever the tone it took and Christian was one of the few that provided some.)
It’s good when people explain why they downvoted something, and I think harsh feedback can be really valuable. I also realize that for some people it’s difficult to word their feedback nicely (this applies to me too if it concerns a dimension I strongly care about). Usually I agree with your sentiment that it’s better to get the criticism in whatever form, if the alternative is not hearing it at all. But that stops to apply if the points are sufficiently minor and the tone sufficiently discouraging. (And continuing to try to give feedback well continues to be important even if we – reluctantly rather than triumphantly – have to agree that lapses are usually to be excused for the greater good of rationality.
Tentatively agree, but in this case the point was about a mostly aesthetic (though common) preference for established terminology, which has nothing to do with anything of substance.
The idea that good ontology is not about anything of substance is one with whom I have strong disagreement. I remember the time when Trump criticized the WHO’s case fatality rate numbers as wrong because they weren’t the infection fatality rate. You have a media that’s not smart enough to tell the difference and repeat sanely on it to resolve such a conflict by saying “well Trump confused CFR with IFR”. This unskilled way of dealing with ontology likely resulted in people thinking the WHO was less informed then warrented and Trump was more and as a result people died.
Getting ontology right is key to thinking as a society in a good way about this crisis. I think there are cases where introducing new concepts is fine but this isn’t one of them.
It seems like you downvoted because you think I used a serious tone when the point I wanted to make was minor. I think you made a mistake and assessed the situation wrongly.
Furthermore, Vipul is a person who has payed research assistants (or at least had in the past) and who has been through bigger internet conflicts. I think he’s a person for whom it’s justified to have higher quality standards then for a random newbie.
It seems like you downvoted because you think I used a serious tone when the point I wanted to make was minor. I think you made a mistake and assessed the situation wrongly.
Yes, this is what happened. I didn’t read closely enough and I thought what Vipul decided to call “true cases” was simply the total number of infections. But he wanted to specifically refer to only the infections that were going to become symptomatic at some point. I agree that this is making a distinction that doesn’t carve reality at its joints. On top of that the label seems to have misleading connotations (evidenced by me having misunderstood what he meant:)). I agree that this can be risky in this context especially.
I’m reversing the downvote! I don’t see though how outsiders could have immediately inferred from your comment that you object to how Vipul drew categories instead of merely his use of non-standard terminology. I think it’s innocuous to use non-standard terminology if one is not the WHO, and if the choice of terminology is intuitive and carves reality at its joints.
Strongly up-voted because I believe the tone of a comment shouldn’t be as an important consideration as the point being made.
Interesting ideas are good, feedback for the further development should also be considered good.
I still think rationality means thinking rationally.
(And I’ve a couple of big doses of unexplained negative karma on the posts I’ve created and would have much preferred some comment/feedback whatever the tone it took and Christian was one of the few that provided some.)
Tentatively agree, but in this case the point was about a mostly aesthetic (though common) preference for established terminology, which has nothing to do with anything of substance. It’s fair to point out that not everyone cares equally little about written appearances, but it seems uncalled for to frame it in a way as though the author was violating a norm. (If people now want strict academic norms for a community blog that initially was started by Eliezer Yudkowsky of all people, that’s another discussion.)
One feature of that is to notice instances when usually sound heuristics are drifting apart from the actual goal. Some people can’t help but feel increasingly more averse to making posts on here if they frequently encounter feedback that makes them feel as though they did something wrong for sharing their thoughts in a suboptimal fashion. Maybe you’re not high on neuroticism, maybe ChristianKI isn’t high on it, and maybe Vipul isn’t either. But I wouldn’t be surprised if people high on neuroticism are overrepresented among rationalists – maybe just not among the ones who frequently post here (and that’s my point). So just because some people wouldn’t get discouraged by slightly pedantic criticism worded in a judgmental fashion doesn’t mean it’s not discouraging for anyone. And it doesn’t help that you’re implicitly suggesting that people are being less rational if criticism affects them more. If some portion of the population is afraid of spiders, you don’t throw spiders at them and say “being rational is about not being affected by negative emotions.” Okay, bad analogy: Criticism usually correlates with truth seeking; throwing spiders does not. However, I think many of the people who are unusually discouraged by judgmentally-worded criticism are discouraged precisely because they take criticism in general unusually seriously. That’s often a virtue. I think LW culture has drifted toward an equilibrium where some traits that usually correlate with rationality are rewarded too much, and other qualities, which can often be virtuous too (in the right person/combination) are written off as attempts to undermine truth seeking. I think that’s a an example of a common failure mode for communities, where signalling dynamics combine with selection effects created by the signalling until what’s left is a culture that is unhealthily extreme on some dimensions, but few in that culture are aware to notice.
It’s good when people explain why they downvoted something, and I think harsh feedback can be really valuable. I also realize that for some people it’s difficult to word their feedback nicely (this applies to me too if it concerns a dimension I strongly care about). Usually I agree with your sentiment that it’s better to get the criticism in whatever form, if the alternative is not hearing it at all. But that stops to apply if the points are sufficiently minor and the tone sufficiently discouraging. (And continuing to try to give feedback well continues to be important even if we – reluctantly rather than triumphantly – have to agree that lapses are usually to be excused for the greater good of rationality.
The idea that good ontology is not about anything of substance is one with whom I have strong disagreement. I remember the time when Trump criticized the WHO’s case fatality rate numbers as wrong because they weren’t the infection fatality rate. You have a media that’s not smart enough to tell the difference and repeat sanely on it to resolve such a conflict by saying “well Trump confused CFR with IFR”. This unskilled way of dealing with ontology likely resulted in people thinking the WHO was less informed then warrented and Trump was more and as a result people died.
Getting ontology right is key to thinking as a society in a good way about this crisis. I think there are cases where introducing new concepts is fine but this isn’t one of them.
It seems like you downvoted because you think I used a serious tone when the point I wanted to make was minor. I think you made a mistake and assessed the situation wrongly.
Furthermore, Vipul is a person who has payed research assistants (or at least had in the past) and who has been through bigger internet conflicts. I think he’s a person for whom it’s justified to have higher quality standards then for a random newbie.
Yes, this is what happened. I didn’t read closely enough and I thought what Vipul decided to call “true cases” was simply the total number of infections. But he wanted to specifically refer to only the infections that were going to become symptomatic at some point. I agree that this is making a distinction that doesn’t carve reality at its joints. On top of that the label seems to have misleading connotations (evidenced by me having misunderstood what he meant:)). I agree that this can be risky in this context especially.
I’m reversing the downvote! I don’t see though how outsiders could have immediately inferred from your comment that you object to how Vipul drew categories instead of merely his use of non-standard terminology. I think it’s innocuous to use non-standard terminology if one is not the WHO, and if the choice of terminology is intuitive and carves reality at its joints.
And about the WHO example, I totally agree. I criticized the WHO for the same reason here: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/3755/what-will-be-the-ratio-of-fatalities-to-total-estimated-infections-for-covid-19-by-the-end-of-2020/#comment-23097
Thank you for the feedback (and also for discussing this at length which gave me better understanding of the nuances). I modified to a more clumsy but hopefully a more what-you-see-is-what-I-mean term: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mRkWTpH9mb8Wdpcn5/coronavirus-california-case-growth?commentId=GHSEwZwR2TSkyzpdm