I’m not talking about a lack of hedging. Being too busy to think through and clearly present your thoughts wastes the time of others. And not following community norms isn’t bravery, nor is your lack of tact.
Frontpage comment guidelines:
Aim to explain, not persuade
Try to offer concrete models and predictions
If you disagree, try getting curious about what your partner is thinking
Don’t be afraid to say ‘oops’ and change your mind
It’s quite clear to me, I even added links to be transparent about the “background knowledge” I was refering to. Of course, it will be unclear to somebody unfamiliar, but that’s how it’s meant to be. There’s conversations on LW that I can’t engage because I lack familiarity, and explaining something in a way that even children can understand requires about 10-15 times more text.
I’m following those community norms. I explain myself, make predictions about the future, offer concrete models (physical, intellectual and social power as categories), and asked what category he’d put murder in. The overton window statement is an unpleasant truth at worst, but this is a website where we frequently discuss the end of humanity.
It wasn’t snark to call myself a non-conformist, I was essentially saying “even if my examples are all about people getting punished in ways that you agree with, the mechanics behind are neutral and may be used against you all the same”. I could just have quoted that poem “First they came for the X, but I did not speak up, for I was not an X” but that has been done to death. I have to disagree both that I lack tact, and that the topics warrants it. And a topic being taboo only results in public opinion being stuck in the stone age in regards to their understanding of it anyway (like mental health in the early 1900s).
When I get a response which is entirely incompatible with my own message, like the one by David above, I tend to guess at what they mean, and to present every conflict between our models, and this is probably a bad habit. Even here, I have to guess which parts of my messages people might have a problem with
Just FYI, virtually no one who genuinely lacks tact believes that they lack tact. That’s the nature of the problem: there are societal norms which, if you’re aware of them, implicitly guide your behavior and, if you’re not, you will violate without even knowing it (pretty much by definition).
Well, can you point out an instance in which I’ve lacked tact? And why would this not be a virtue on LW? Truth doesn’t care about our feelings nor our morals, it’s brutal and it’s also ugly (with the exception of the beauty in mathematics).
One can talk with the goal of socializing, or with the goal of learning the truth, the two approaches are in conflict. If you attempt to do both at once, your efficiency will be terrible.
You’re only communicating if people are listening to you. If you talk in a way that causes fewer people to listen to you you’re being anything but more efficient. The goal isn’t to issue forth your great truths into the empty void—it is to be heard and understood by the greatest number of people. Tact is the avoidance of needless offense to other people. It is a cop-out to say that the only way something brutal or ugly can be communicated is to offend people in the process. What that statement actually means is that you can’t be bothered to find a tactful way to communicate.
Some posts and comments are not for all people, and I think that’s alright. There’s a somewhat controversial quote which goes “no meaningful communication is possible among people not sharing a common window of 30 IQ points”, and I think it’s more true than false in intellectual contexts. Also, I just remembered—I got into the habit of writing in a way that stupid people cannot understand doing my time on Reddit. Precisely by filtering stupid people, do I avoid offending them, and entering into discussions with people who weren’t meant for the information at hand.
I also think it’s enought that my comments hold no malice or hostility. Information-seeking is inherently perverted, so it’s hard to do in a tasteful way. And navigating around all peoples insecurities is frankly not possible. I could claim that your comment is offensive to me, and that would be totally unfalsifiable, you’d have no defense other than asserting that I’m being unreasonable.
And in a sense, I think it’s rude for people who cannot handle reality to enter into intellectual discussions, since they cannot provide any value, and because they have a tendency to attack the people who can. Your own perception of reality is your own responsibility, this was the cultural norm around 40 years ago, and things steadly get worse as this norm fades further.
I’m not talking about a lack of hedging. Being too busy to think through and clearly present your thoughts wastes the time of others. And not following community norms isn’t bravery, nor is your lack of tact.
Frontpage comment guidelines:
Aim to explain, not persuade
Try to offer concrete models and predictions
If you disagree, try getting curious about what your partner is thinking
Don’t be afraid to say ‘oops’ and change your mind
It’s quite clear to me, I even added links to be transparent about the “background knowledge” I was refering to. Of course, it will be unclear to somebody unfamiliar, but that’s how it’s meant to be. There’s conversations on LW that I can’t engage because I lack familiarity, and explaining something in a way that even children can understand requires about 10-15 times more text.
I’m following those community norms. I explain myself, make predictions about the future, offer concrete models (physical, intellectual and social power as categories), and asked what category he’d put murder in. The overton window statement is an unpleasant truth at worst, but this is a website where we frequently discuss the end of humanity.
It wasn’t snark to call myself a non-conformist, I was essentially saying “even if my examples are all about people getting punished in ways that you agree with, the mechanics behind are neutral and may be used against you all the same”. I could just have quoted that poem “First they came for the X, but I did not speak up, for I was not an X” but that has been done to death. I have to disagree both that I lack tact, and that the topics warrants it. And a topic being taboo only results in public opinion being stuck in the stone age in regards to their understanding of it anyway (like mental health in the early 1900s).
When I get a response which is entirely incompatible with my own message, like the one by David above, I tend to guess at what they mean, and to present every conflict between our models, and this is probably a bad habit. Even here, I have to guess which parts of my messages people might have a problem with
Just FYI, virtually no one who genuinely lacks tact believes that they lack tact. That’s the nature of the problem: there are societal norms which, if you’re aware of them, implicitly guide your behavior and, if you’re not, you will violate without even knowing it (pretty much by definition).
Well, can you point out an instance in which I’ve lacked tact? And why would this not be a virtue on LW? Truth doesn’t care about our feelings nor our morals, it’s brutal and it’s also ugly (with the exception of the beauty in mathematics).
One can talk with the goal of socializing, or with the goal of learning the truth, the two approaches are in conflict. If you attempt to do both at once, your efficiency will be terrible.
You’re only communicating if people are listening to you. If you talk in a way that causes fewer people to listen to you you’re being anything but more efficient. The goal isn’t to issue forth your great truths into the empty void—it is to be heard and understood by the greatest number of people. Tact is the avoidance of needless offense to other people. It is a cop-out to say that the only way something brutal or ugly can be communicated is to offend people in the process. What that statement actually means is that you can’t be bothered to find a tactful way to communicate.
Some posts and comments are not for all people, and I think that’s alright. There’s a somewhat controversial quote which goes “no meaningful communication is possible among people not sharing a common window of 30 IQ points”, and I think it’s more true than false in intellectual contexts. Also, I just remembered—I got into the habit of writing in a way that stupid people cannot understand doing my time on Reddit. Precisely by filtering stupid people, do I avoid offending them, and entering into discussions with people who weren’t meant for the information at hand.
I also think it’s enought that my comments hold no malice or hostility. Information-seeking is inherently perverted, so it’s hard to do in a tasteful way. And navigating around all peoples insecurities is frankly not possible. I could claim that your comment is offensive to me, and that would be totally unfalsifiable, you’d have no defense other than asserting that I’m being unreasonable.
And in a sense, I think it’s rude for people who cannot handle reality to enter into intellectual discussions, since they cannot provide any value, and because they have a tendency to attack the people who can. Your own perception of reality is your own responsibility, this was the cultural norm around 40 years ago, and things steadly get worse as this norm fades further.